A former chairman of the NASDAQ and creator of the biggest discovered ponzi investment scheme that ran for decades, Madoff abused the trust he instilled in friends and investors to the tune of 50 to 60 billion.

Although when the dust settles, it’ll probably be a lot less than that since many earlier investors actually made more than they ever put in.

Sources say how he came across as genuine, trustworthy, caring, etc. The kind of qualities usually reserved for the deceased. You know, how most everyone is held up as more wonderful than they really were when they were still alive.

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As Attraction Marketers, building Trust is paramount to any lasting success in this industry. For the unscrupulous, it can be tempting to abuse it once gained. Social proof and pictures of cash and checks and results can go a long way into getting people to think you are a nice guy and one to be a business partner or team mate with.

You can never really know someone. Even ‘business associates’ can be duped by others and by association, can damage their own reputation and integrity.

If you’re in this business long enough, you will experience your share of bullshit companies, charlatans and the like, the lure of ‘leveraged wealth’ attracts more than the average amount of wolves wearing sheep’s threads.

Any marketer who knowingly promotes a bad opportunity or tool is guilty of the worse offense – like Madoff. . . which is abusing the trust you’ve built in your peers/teammates for your own selfish gain… it borders on sociopathy.

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But I am not here to try and discourage you. I am saying, don’t become blind to hype or greed or giveup your power to a guru or cultish company.

Don’t put all your efforts into one income source. As an internet marketer, don’t just rely on one program or company – programs go stale, companies change comp plans or go under.

Be more well rounded – direct sales, network marketing, affiliate marketing all have their advantages and if you do it right, they can compliment each other synergistically.

Also, don’t be overly eager to hype someone else up who you don’t personally have a pre-existing relationship with. Affiliate marketing gurus like Mike Dillard and Frank Kern are probably safe, but lesser knowns or unknowns, I would use caution and reservation until you feel comfortable with their reputation. Because your reputation is based in large part by the company you keep.

The problem is, in the last 50 years, at least in America and the UK, studies have shown that our level of trust of our fellow man is lower than ever. Not surprisingly, this also has led to a decrease in overall happiness.

If you bother to read the news, the evidence to support suspicion of others is all too apparent.  Case in point, Bernard Madoff, until this week, was a highly respected Wall Street money manager and previously chairman of the NASDAQ, has been caught in the biggest ponzi scheme ever – to the tune of 50 billion dollars – more or less stolen from investors, both rich and common.

When something like this happens you begin to think, ‘well, then who can I trust?’ and you answer, ‘maybe no one.’

So how does this apply to the internet marketer? Well, I suppose it makes our job of earning another’s trust just a little bit harder.  Since no one is a mind reader, none of us can ever be truly sure of another’s intentions – and in the case of Madoff, he came across as a great caring guy. The ideal con artist persona.

In the end, it seems that when it comes to money, human nature’s tendancy to be greedy supercedes moralistic behavior. At least for those who don’t believe in abundance for all and think there’s only so much pie to go around and damned if they aren’t going to take as much as possible.

Apparently it pays off for a while – but then remember the saying, there’s no honor amongst thieves.

Another saying, ‘if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is’ should have an asterik to the disclaimer  * human greed often supercedes honesty and fairness.

So this guy Madoff, now 70 years old, who defrauded all these people  – some who’ve been ‘friends’ for decades – along with charities, got caught due to the economy tanking. He had a good thing going until then – maybe would’ve died before ever getting caught.  So why’d he do it?  I’m sure there’s a much bigger picture to this than the press will ever know or report.

Why? because unless he was blinded and insane from the idea of having more money than he could ever use, which I doubt, then there is more to this than meets the eye.  For someone who makes $10 million a year and makes an extra $100K a year doesn’t get the same amount of happiness as a person who earns 30,000 a year and then makes an extra $50,000.  Once you get past the poverty stage, the greater the amount of money you earn compared to the amount of increased happiness it brings diminishes more and more.

So back to trust. I for one think you should listen to your intuition, your heart, your gut, whatever you want to call it. Then add in some common sense logic and go from there.  Get to know the people you deal with. Find out as much as you can about their values, morals, and aspirations.  Do they mesh with yours? Are they a good person? . . . Are you?