This brings up another issues regarding how appearances can deceive

Unfortunately, as Buddhists and Hindus have declared, much of life is Maya or illusion. So often you can deceive yourself when your desires and wants overwhelm you. You lose sight of who you are or what your real callings is. You run after images. This often makes you a sucker for superficial appearances and intimidating know-it-all posturing by others.

Unfortunately I have found many times that people and companies exaggerate who and what they are. So many times I have seen people and companies try to impress me with their offices, cars, expensive lunches, name-dropping. Many times, beneath the exaggeration, a truer picture begins to emerge. How good is your questioning of the real details that matter. Much of whom people and companies are is revealed in their cash flow balance sheet and income statements.

But as we have seen with Crazy Eddies’ and Enron, there are ways to cook the books. We often are intoxicated by well publicized success stories. Conmen know how to set the state. They seem to have found the secret sauce. They find the vulnerabilities of what makes for human folly. What is the best defense against the seemingly infinite variations of human deceit. One statistics tell us that only a certain number of people are monetarily successful. Only 4% of new businesses over 10 years succeed. So when reviewing a business, an organization or a person, the odds of true financial success are slim.

Secondly, people’s actions are very revealing

One of my cardinal rules is whatever you see up front only gets worse over time. If a person contradicts themselves, acts shady, overly demanding, can’t stop spending, exaggeration, lacks, empathy, brags, fudges the facts, is crude, is cold, is hard to reach, seems always busy with busy work, can’t stop selling or negotiating, drops names, fails to meet deadlines, makes excuses, blames others, is very arrogant, is abrasive, is hard to pin down, cheats in golf, sports, on his wife, girlfriend, boyfriend.

You get the idea. Companies and people act very similar. But these actions cut across all areas of life.

Now matter how vigilant you are, you will be duped again and again. The real issue – the critical issue – is playing the championship points: Love, work, spirit, health, overall attitude.

No decisions are more important than who we marry and what work we choose. Both of these decisions affect your life significantly. Even the non decisions of not getting married or not choosing carefully what your work is, can have incredible consequence for your life.
If human beings are created to procreate survive and thrive, then how they handle these life events is critical. If a person does not marry and/or cannot have children, how the person compensates and copes affects them positively or negatively.

Because these decisions are so key to your life, you are brought to the issue of Spirit

Achieving financial independence: finding a positive relationship, hopefully a great companion and even a soul mate, involves skill and talent. Genetics and environment combine to create many challenges – some of which we have little control. If we can access the power of Spirit in life, we have a source of power and leverage more rewarding than any on earth. A true person of Spirit will never be lonely or want.

When you are deceived and/or betrayed, thrown a wicked curve, the inner source of Spirit and a sense that your life has meaning will, more often than not, enable you to pick yourself up and give life another go.

Today more than ever, you will constantly find yourself facing the possibility of individual deceit. People will constantly try to appear much more successful, effective, and competent than you are. Such subterfuges are at the heart of all relationships and communications. You need to be a master detective. Look for revealing body language, appearance, and dialogue. Sometimes you will meet wonderful people. But more often assume you will meet the exaggerator. Know these types cannot come to terms with who they are. To them, to be “unsuccessful” and vulnerable is like a death sentence. The exaggerators are detached from their true reality and can cause great harm to you and other.

Keep questioning yourself. Often, your susceptibility lies within you. Ask yourself what want are you trying to fulfill. If this person or company did not exist, what would I do or not do. Where else could I fulfill my needs or wants, however tedious and troublesome such a thought might be? Keep watching the Big Picture and the Small details for revealing words or actions.

Presenting themselves is an expression of how they see their company

If the can’t clearly and compellingly project their company in advantageous and desirable and exciting mode to you when they’re trying to get your money, how are they going to do it to a customer?

I believe deceit has become even more prevalent. At some level, deceit seems to have this naughty boy/girl appeal until you are a victim of it. When you look to give a company money, the basic transaction is clear. The Company wants your money to deploy in their company – assuming it’s not agreed to go in the owners’ pockets. You want to invest at a level to get some defined returns and/or benefits. But with the speed of information the internet the movement of capital I believe we are not only a celebrity crazed, winner takes all narcissistic society but one that has become coldly transactional.

Companies the people that run them and personal interactions seem much more transactional versus relationships oriented

Companies often present whatever they think can get the money. The individuals in the company only feign real interest in you, the investors or even the long term view of their company. Loyalty, respect, desire for excellence are superficially mouthed. More focus is on getting the value of their stock up so they can live the ‘American Dream’ depicted in the media. So, yes, more than ever companies want instant gratification. They do not really have a durable competitive advantage, a clear vision, a well articulated USP, a well thought out plan or a way to get and keep customers.

Looking back, I was amazed at how the person reveals himself. I refuted what my intuition was telling me. Many experiences involved wishful thinking. I did not probe the facts and assumptions. Promoters sell their ventures with great conviction. Often, I find the concept’s potential exciting. At times, I failed to understand the product or service thoroughly and equally as important, who would implement the plan. I committed more than once, the business mistake of falling in love with the concept’s potential and failing to check thoroughly enough its validity and the character and talent of the people necessary to fulfill execute the overall business plan.

Whatever the person says, check it out!

If a person says that he/she sells x, call up x. Verify. The more you investigate, the less you will invest. That means the less you’ll lose, too. Verify the story. Everything the person or company says, you should weigh carefully. I somebody tells you they have contracts, ask for the contracts. See what it says. Contracts have outs, minimums that must be reached, and other specific terms or requirements that turn what seems a grand slam opportunity into only a possible single or a clear strike out.

Have you invested passively in a startup or a small business that had purported prospects that didn’t pan out? How much did you lose? $5,000? $50,000? A million? Millions? Why? Did you have to invest? Did you need the action? Did you close your eyes to reality—the hard probing questions—and become impatient or greedy? Often, the worst people to back are salespeople and engineers. They are not managers nor entrepreneurs. You want to believe them. The business can’t miss. They will attempt to convince you to forget the details necessary for business success.

It is very difficult for people to do. It is rooted in trust and faith. The pain of separation, of separating, negative emotions and programming by others and tragic events to you or others that affect or have affected you deeply push and pull you away from a sense of commitment (and, where appropriate, intimacy). You could be married for 20 years but emotionally you never made the commitment. You have “one foot in and one foot out.” There may be something or someone better. A better story. A release from your inner self – imprisonment.

Lack of commitment destroys many relationships

It’s one foot in and one foot out. Maybe the grass will be greener. But if you want to build your business and/or your relationship, you need to make a total commitment. Total commitment is an act of genuine giving, of having flexibility, being pliant and yielding. Sharing to build a strong foundation and ongoing relationship. Business and people relationships fail based on a lack of mutual commitment. People too readily blame one another. They lack the willingness to struggle and bond on a deep, meaningful level.

You need to have committed partners and partnerships. Without them, when there’s an opening, they’re going to take advantage. A key ingredient in business or personal relationships are loyal partners. You can succeed without loyal partners, but the stress of constantly being on guard is painful and stressful. Usually, over time you can lose your money, your investment, your time, your health. Partners contract “convenient amnesia”: What did you do for me today?” “But I just kept you in business or did this or that” or “I supported you during your worst nightmare times.” “But that was yesterday,” they say. “What did you do for me today?”

Partnerships

The ability to maintain a partnership with yourself and others, the corollary to commitment is partnership-ability. Some people are long rangers, loners. People become objects to be manipulated to achieve their agenda; to them is the goal – the more reliable partner. Money can work for you every day in the bank or in investments and not answer back. People add complications bring pain and take up time.

With acceleration of information, the crime rate, lawyers sowing doubt, modern life uncertainty has created an atmosphere of distrust and fear of commitment. Agreements today have terms similar to prenuptial clauses. People and money come together so fast at times that the focus is on divorce. What if? How do we get out? Who owns what? Buy – sell agreements. Death, bankruptcy, criminal conviction, causes that terminate partnerships. Tremendous money, negotiating, time, anguish are spelled out in documents. The documents rule.

But, ironically, with all the supposed protections, an old saying still stands: “The documents are as good as the people.”

Commitment, loyalty, and partnerships are core elements of success as well as failure. I endured three partners who controlled a board of director’s vote to protect themselves to the detriment of the company. They were dishonest and incompetent. They were loyal to their own self-preservation but not loyal or committed to the shareholders—investors who had backed them. In a sense, a small partnership hurt a larger “partnership”—the investors. Here, lack of integrity and desire for power and money ruled rather than hire competent people. In the end, the tree partners virtually bankrupted themselves and the company. Everyone was hurt.

People, individuals companies, political factions countries bloc. All have agendas – underlying actions – agendas can be lethal to relationships. Commitment to an agenda can lead to deceit: in authenticity, and much pain. Some people’s agendas are compulsions – that cannot help themselves.

Step 1: One of the most compelling definitions of a leader is an individual whose mere presence inspires the desire to follow. When asked if leaders are born or bred, the general consensus is that leadership can be taught. While few of us have had the opportunity to be formally trained or mentored in leadership, all of us are called to be a leader at different times and circumstances in our lives. Leadership is first about who you are as an individual, not what you do, and the term character best describes the core characteristic of a leader. It is this part of an individual that inspires other to follow, so we see character as the summation of an individual’s principles and values, core beliefs by which one anchors and measures their behavior in all roles in life. Principles and values of a positive leader include loyalty, respect, integrity, courage, fairness, honesty, duty, honor and commitment.

Step 2: If character is the summation of our principles and values, then ethics is the application of them. To understand more about character development, we can reach back nearly 2500 years to the writings of Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle taught that moral virtue is acquired by practice. Ethics, according to Aristotle, is moral virtue that comes about as a result of habit. Ethics has as its root ethike, formed by the slight variation of the word ethos (habit). Aristotle explained that moral virtues do not arise in us by nature; we must accept them, embrace them and perfect them by habit. Leadership training emphasizes that understanding leader values and attributes is only the first step in development. A leader must also embrace values and practice attributes, living them until they become a habit.

Step 3: In the Business Development role, success requires a fusion of who we are as an individual, along with our principles, values, ethics and their application. It’s a unique combination of what we know, how we apply it and what we do.

Bill Scheessele is CEO/Founder of MBDi, a Business Development consultancy based in Charlotte, North Carolina. For the past 27 years, MBDi has assisted client firms in leveraging their high level expertise into bottom line business. Information on the company and the MBDi Business Development Process™ access: www.mbdi.com.