After Taking Off, A New Pitfall - A Very Strong Hit.....
Hello Steemians, I hope all is well
On this post I'm going to share another chapter of my life that is going to show you that a lightning can hit twice in the same place, I even know cases when it happened more than twice.
On my last post I talked about my first big flop, and how I had to have the emotional intelligence to deal with it and reorganize my financial life.
As I had foresaw back then, it was going to be a long climb back, but sticking to the plan it took about three years for my financial status to change back to optimal. My businesses were thriving and they were really taking off, I really started to build my wealth in that period.
I was introduced to someone by a common friend, someone very pleasant, that kind of person that you believe is honest, so we began a friendship. I really became close friends with that person, I had him at the top of my list, and mind you this is a short list.
I saw his kids grow, I met them when they were 5 and 8 years old, and during many years we used to visit each other's homes and did lots of business deals together. Around this time I moved to USA for an extended period of time, since one of our companies was branching out internationally.
In one of my trips back to my home country he came to me with a business proposal that was extremely lucrative. The idea was that we would get together a big number of investors and start a fund that would render amazing passive dividends for us every month.
I did not think much about it, since we were close friends so I jumped into the business and even invited other friends to come join me on the venture. Mind you, these were people from a very closed circle of mine.
I used my credibility my word to ensure the investors that we were doing the right thing here, and many of the investors joined without much resistance, some with a lot, some with less, but the full amount was pretty big.
I returned to USA soon after and everything was going well, the monthly dividends were being paid out, and not a single person thought negatively about the whole idea. It was for all intents and purposes smooth sailing.
All of the sudden the normal payments that were due to show in my accounts did not show, and I even thought. "Oh, he must have had a problem with the Banks or something", but two days went by and nothing, until he left me a message that he needed to talk.
He told me things were not going well, and as soon as I heard that I took a plane back to my home country to meet with him, we met at my house and he began to explain the problem. All of the sudden what should had been a simple explanation became the most confusing set of excuses designed to throw me off the scent. I was tired, so we agreed to talk later, I needed to sort out the mess, as I had involved other people on this too.
Weeks went by and no solution in sight, he kept on babbling the same drivel with proposing absolutely no solution. All of the sudden the phone was never picked up again, and this person pretty much disappeared from the map.
We had been victims of a scam, and I had the horrible job of telling my friends what had happened. They were shocked, "SCAM... From your FRIEND??? HOW COME?" Yes, from someone I thought was my friend.
This was the sad truth, and I can say that the financial crisis I fell into was even bigger than the first one, the one I just shared with you in the other posts. Between my friends an I we lost millions and millions and it was even harder for me to accept because this scam was perpetrated by someone who was close to me, someone who came to my house, someone who's children I saw grow up.
The first flop I had I made a mistake, but this time, I was cheated, I was scammed, and that had a heavy weight in my mind.
The sum was vastly bigger, but I had a more stable income and had a better financial structure, so I was able to continue working without having to disrupt everything like my previous big mistake.
But the hardest thing for me was to deal with the punch to the gut of having someone who I trusted betrayed me like that, that is something no one can ever be ready to deal with. It's like taking a knife to the heart and it taught me a very valuable lesson no doubt, but I can still say and guarantee that:
- I never changed the person that I am
- I still did my best to believe in people
- I made sure not to lose my relationships with all those friends that I had brought into the business, because I was transparent with them. They know I was being honest and that our relationship was valuable.
But I'm sure I'll share more about some of those lessons and abstract ideas, because they can get quite deep, and it seems almost impossible to continue to have a positive attitude and continue to trust in the kindness of people when something like that happens to you.
Very important:
I would really like it if those who read these posts would take their time to support, to upvote those who have taken their time to read, understand and leave meaninunful comments, in the same way that I do. From now on I will stop upvoting those who self vote on their comments, and I would suggest everyone to do the same.
Why? Because believe me: This is how you build a good network, with good people. Like this everyone can win recognition.
If you are new here reading my blog be sure to read the previous post because as I said earlier I am writing a number of them and to understand every context that I wish to teach for everyone it is important that you understand that they are interconnected step by step to build this journey of change of mentality and positivism.
If you read my last three posts you will see that I asked personally for people to learn to support each other, to vote on each others comments with the condition that the comments show effort, and it work incredibly. There are comments with 7,8,9,10 upvotes. That is the spirit of a positive network and I also participate of it when I see people put effort.
I didn't see this happen in my last post so I ask everyone to pay more attention to it and support each other and if you were one of the first to post a comment on the post go back the next day and vote on the good comments that other friends made and have spent their time with you. I would appreciate it if you had this attitude between you.
I'll leave this chapter here for now, wishing you all the best
This is the most important idea that I take from your post; to never change who you are, to always act in accordance with your own beliefs and to never allow your strength to be weakened by the actions of others.
An unfortunate and hard lesson to learn about a so-called friend, thank you for sharing.
Thank you for your words! Friend!
Sorry to hear this @chbartist
It’s very unfortunate and sad money can make people very bad and evil things that are difficult to even imagine.
There is a popular quote ‘ the fault lies with people who cheat and not the ones who gets cheated’. This is in my native launguage, not sure if I translated correctly but thats the gist.
It is commendable that you’re keeping your character which is of utmost importance and your friends as well.
Many thanks for your advice.
I understand what you mean. These are moments of my journey that I have shared here because I really want people to understand that success is not for free. I also hope you learn to be supportive of each other by giving upvotes at all as you are devoting your time to reading and commenting. Thank you for the kind words.
@chbartist A bit of wisdom to share with you here from South Africa. The first is a saying here; "If you want to lose a friend, lend him/her some money" and the second one is that I feel sorry for your scamming friend. The poor guy does not know what he has done to himself. For the wheel turns and he will have no hiding place when his turn comes. No amount of money in the world will be able to help him.
As a charity we are regularly scammed, but we have lasted now since 2002 and we simply continue on our road to help the poor. Sorry about your loss and I can imagine how you feel about your close friends losses, but life goes on and you show here that you have a strong heart! Blessings!
Hi my friend, thank you very much for your kind words and share the culture of your country with everyone here. About lending money to friends is exactly what I replied to @unclefz in this post. Greetings
Greetings @chbartist ,I'm sorry for the loss. The thing which i like is your positive attitude towards trusting people. I know that how much it's difficult to handle the situation when many of your friends invested with you with having trust on you.
That was a bad egg who made the situation worst and scam you, and then he ran with all the money. I really hate this kinds of people who break trusts.
I appreciate your patience after big loss. We should learn from our past and i believe that you learnt a lot from your experience. I really appreciate your concern in helping people with your experience.
Have a good day @chbartist
Thank you for your words, but this is past I recovery my loss after that! Regards
I understand so well what you say: at that moment it doesn't hurt to lose the money, what hurts is to lose the friend. Money can be recovered, but trust is one of those things that after loss are never recovered, @chbartist. I like that although you cared about yourself, your first concern was the others you had involved in that project. Because one thing is that things go wrong for you and another very different thing that you are responsible for the failure of others. You were afraid that they would also lose confidence in you, but still, you kept believing and betting on people, trying to do your job. That's a good example! Man should not only stand up but walk with his forehead held high after the fall. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Beautiful words, thank you for always participating!
One thing i learnt from your comment is that if you want to go far, go with people
Very good your messages I am new in your blog, I am catching up with the previous posts in this series, I keep reading. regards
Note: I apologize that I do not master the English language, but it is the only way to share my message I hope you understand
Yes friend, I understand you, about your English don't worry it is not my native language too. Thank you for reading the posts. You are welcome
I love the second lesson learnt up there ... doing your best to believe in the people. At times when bad situations happen to us we tend to lose confidence in people. We are certainly afraid of who to trust next or who not too. But you took a bold step and look at the result now..its positive man.its good to always see light at the end of the tunnel. Big ups man
I just think that life could be simpler and it is the human being who complicates it for himself and especially for others. Everything could be simple but doing the simple seems to be difficult for many people. Regards
These things hurt more if they come from people you love and you have all your confidence ... If it is with a stranger or someone you do not have so much confidence would not affect much, the problem is when there is love involved. .. Once it happened to me with a friend, we were going to set up a business, and before mounting it it betrayed me ... it used all the information of the project, that I had structured, including I already had budgets and had contacted suppliers .... She asked me the budget to see some things, and I had so much confidence in her, that I gave her the key to my mail, I told her to print them because I was at work and I could not at that moment ... She downloaded ALL the project information and partnered with another girl ... I found out later that one of the suppliers called me and told me to pay for something that we had supposedly bought and she told me that my partner had already bought several things and had fallen behind, there I I learned everything ... and it took me a lot to assimilate it ... the good thing is that it happened on time ... before forming the company, and really I did not lose anything ... only my time ... but it hurt me a lot , for being my best friend !!!
I understand blessed, unfortunately people always go through such situations in life but the important thing is to keep who we are. Regards
So is.. 😉
My own experience is not scam, but borrowing. I have borrowed a lot of people i once thought to be my friend some money, big sum to me as at then and till date they never paid back, some paid a fraction initially, giving me the confidence that they would complete the payment subsequently but they didn't. That has changed me a little, though, because since then, i have always tried my best not to be in a situation where i would have to borrow a friend some money. But, that doesn't mean that everyone you borrow wont pay back because there are also a lot of people i have borrowed who paid back with many thanks and appreciations.
I don't much like lending money to friends. The reason for this is not because of the money but because if the person does not pay back it goes away naturally because it thinks that you will keep remembering it when I call the person and this can end a true friendship many times because of small amount of money. Regards
Friend continue being the same person, but take into account, that there is no friend and less if it is about money, follow your business, God is great and your recovery will be soon
That was in the past and I've recovered but of course people like that always leave scars on us. But okay, what would life be without challenges? Thank You!