It's strange how through friends, collegues, books, movies, TV... you can hear about a concept your whole life, perfectly understand it, find it rational and yet you still do not apply it up until when you have been abused over and over so much that you reach a breaking point.
Snap.
Why? Why? Why?
Here's the first concept I will now live by. Always ask yourself why? Why, why, why?
For those of you that play Poker, I'll use this analogy: a good player will always ask himself why is his opponent betting so small on the flop, why is he checking the turn, why is he betting so small on the river, why did he take 1 minute to make up his mind?
Hence in life, never, ever, ever, take anything at face value when interracting with another human being, whether they are friends, family and especially if they are collegues / professional relations.
You get a phone call from an ex collegue out of the blue? Even if it's only small talk, ask yourself, why? You get invited to lunch by someone you havn't talked to in years? Why? Someone is keeping in regular contact with you even though you have little in commun, why? A friend you havn't talked to in months invites you to an event out of the blue? Why? A collegue who used to be a political threat to you is now kind and helpful? Why?
Never ever take anything at face value, always dig deeper to figure out what the real motives are. Everyone has an agenda, no matter how cliché this sounds.
It is a sad state of affairs when you need to question the motives of not only colleagues but friends and loved ones, but hey... maybe after a while it becomes second nature and makes it easier.
I now understand that true trust can only be built by asking "why" repeatedly and repeatedly getting a satisfying answer. How many why's does it take will depend on your level of paranoia, and I just upped mine by 300%.
Keep your cards close to the chest / never reveal information you do not have to
Here's a very simple one, that I have not lived by up until today.
Let's start with a poker analogy again: you just won a pot before showdown, do you show your hand? No.
Never ever ever disclose information if you do not have to or if you do not have a specific reason to do so.
Do not think for one second that disclosing information to someone will create / reinforce a potential trusting/friendship relationship between the both of you. Any cynical minded person, or worst, any conscious manipulator, will take that information in and see it as a free win. You are the sucker in this case. A manipulator may even shoot back some benign information to make you feel as if you are both exchanging on the same level, while he's actually sucking you dry.
The core of this concept is: being an open, direct and straightforward guy opens you up to manipulation.
Why should I reveal this information?
What can I gain from it?
What risks am I exposing myself to?
These are questions that I need to always be asking myself.
Both of these concepts basically boil down to trust, and what I only now discovered is that trust is not given then taken away if broken, trust is built slowly and surely from the grounds up... and even then it should be considered as fragile.
