My Biggest Mistake In 2023

About 3 years ago I recorded a video which cropped up again on Facebook as a "memory to share".
I was so embarrassed when I watched it, that I couldn't share it and now I can't find it. I was going to publish it here in this post because I believe that we must face our faults and I regretted not sharing it.

It was a video with a very sound principle about the trend of, "Get rich quick with no work offers" that had started multiplying online.

It is common for people to promote these offers, which usually have high reward affiliate programs, with the warnings to...
   - Never put in money that you can’t afford to lose.
   - Take out your stake money as soon as practical. Once you have your cash back you can’t lose!
   - Never get greedy.
   - Don’t fall for special promotions offering even greater returns; these often precede a “rug      pull”.
   - Compound half and withdraw half your income once you have your stake back, providing you with growth and profit.

The message in my video was that we should not promote or get involved in these "programs" because 99% fail either because they are set up a a scam (rug pull), are an illegal Ponzie or simply fail due to poor management.

So, promoting them even with the warnings did not make it ethical, and even if you made money it was at the expense of those who lost money! Is that something you truly want to do? Profit at the expense of others!

I STILL BELIEVE THIS TO BE TRUE!

We should therefore, discourage and warn people about all of these plans and never get involved in them. This is sound thinking and good judgement.

However, the path is not always easy and temptation is strong. Many of these so called opportunities come well concealed and I am ashamed and embarrassed to heve not heeded my own warnings and good judgement.

In early 2023, it may even have been sometime in 2022, I was approached with a plan called SoBuy, which appeared to be a ligitimate way to easily make some good money. I was shown figures of prompt withdrawals that had been paid out (very large sums) regularly for over 6 months and also other proof of how the plan worked by vendors paying to have their SEO ranking for products enhanced by people clicking on their web pages. You paid a fee to the company to be allocated more links to click and this was supposed to be how they profited.

Needless to say, it was a scam and after being involved, and promoting this for a few weeks, the site and all the investments made by members vanished into thin air.

This was bad enough but, sadly, it was the thin end of the wedge! 

More plans, all with track records and proof were offered to me and it became like a gambling addiction to get into these "scams" and find one that really did as it said. Over the course of 2023 I got in and out of plans - offereing the usual warnings to people - only to find that all of them were what any sane person would know. SCAMS and or PONZIES!

It's a slippery slope once you are on it and it takes real strength and will to escape, which towards the end of 2023 I had resolved to do and get back to reality.

There are plenty of ligitimate and honest ways to make money without falling for the Hype and Nonsense. 

Genuine Affiliate Marketing, of sound and honest products, is one way open to all comers to generate a good income online. It is get rich quick, but that's a few short years not a few days or hours.

There are MLM (Multi-Level_marketing) plans that are in effect, Affiliate marketing with leverage, and provided the products are good and of value another ligitimate way, with effort, to generate income.  Again these are get rich quick in a few short years, not overnight wealth for doing nothing.

No doubt, there are also genuine investment plans which over a number of years can pay off well, but don't expect crazy weekly returns that are simply not sustainable, and in most cases you will need to have a good bundle of cash to even be accepted in an honest (and still risky) portfolio.

I make this post to highlight just how easy it is to be drawn into the dark world of Internet Scams that proliferate.

Get into something honest and proven; commit to it for 3 to 5 years and be prepared to put in time, effort and capital, if you truly want to change your financial fortunes for the better by providing honest service to your clients.

This way you will be able to sleep at night and look everyone in the eye.

Remember that a McDonalds Franchise, which is a licence to print money,  requires millions of dollars invetment and takes 3 to 5 years just to break even.

Compare the path of 3 to 5 years, learning new skills, taking action and personal growth, which will at times be uncomfortable, to a 40 years career in a job that will never give you the income to actually live your dreams.

God bless.