Why I Don’t Have A Lot Of Friends These Days
And Why I Rarely Join A New Venture
Some people have accused me of being distant in the past.
And in a way, those people could be right. I have a hard time making deep connections with people.
It’s not that I’m totally averse to friendship. It’s just that it takes some time before I can trust someone.
I never truly understood why.
But now I think I do.
Sniffing Out The Bad People
I have been betrayed in the past.
By very close friends. That news doesn’t shock you, right? Because it happens to everyone all the time.
Except that it doesn’t really happy to me any more these days. And that’s probably because I changed the way I judge people.
I now mostly judge people on gut-feel.
And you know what?
My gut is spot on these days.
That’s why I manage to sniff out the ‘bad’ people and avoid getting exploited.
In the past, I would judge people on looks and other superficial qualities and those are too easy to fake.
But gut-feel can’t be faked.
The gut never lies.
The Golden Rule
I have a rule now.
It totally improved my social and personal skills from day one.
Here it is:
The closer you want to get to me, the better your values have to be.
And I’m getting more and more strict about applying the rule too.
If I spot somebody lying to me or somebody else, I never allow this person to get close to me.
I can’t trust someone who can throw anybody under the bus for a bigger piece of the pie without thinking twice.
That behaviour is hard to correct, so I’m not even going to try. I want honest and reliable people in my life.
That’s my benchmark now.
Waiting For The No-Brainer
I’m very picky.
But I don’t think you can be too picky in life.
Most people think that profitable ventures are scarce. That’s why they act without thinking if they think they found one.
I did that too, I jumped into every possible venture with every possible character in the past.
And that hurt me a couple of times.
I learned from my mistakes. These days, I rarely start a new venture.
And that’s okay.
Because I’m waiting for the no-brainer: a profitable venture with a high-integrity partner.
That’s going to take some time. Because we are surrounded by low-integrity people.
There are high integrity people out there but they’re very rare and they only work with other high-integrity people.
So you want to be careful.
I have a couple of very good friends.
They have shown time and time again that they have high-integrity and that they can be trusted.
Those are the people you want to surround yourself with.
And yes, waiting for high-integrity people to show up and connect with you is not always easy.
But that’s nothing compared to going through a bankruptcy.
And I would know.
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