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“Thou shalt not COVET” did not take in consideration – CATFISH

If you have not read Chad Duke’s post this morning on the NABA Facebook page you missed one of the CRAFT’s rising stars open up about one of the cancers of this industry – The Catfish network.  Chad’s post showed a sign of him that, even as his mentor, is rarely seen.  I have no insight to what caused this post and in lieu of the previous 2+ days attention on guns [AGAIN] it put a screeching halt to the uncontrollable gunarrhea.

One of the things that Chad’s post reminded me of was something that I did yesterday.  If you have ever been stung by the Catfish network it puts a nasty taste in your mouth and you immdiately go on the offense.  Once you have exhausted yourself trying to get even or exposing them you immediately go on the defense.  The defensive measures that you employ are, putting up you guard when meeting new providers and specialists, limiting who is on your details, and never allow a new person on your detail without the watchful eye of a seasoned trusted specialist.  One of the things that I did was covet the backbone of my network.  The backbone are those 2-3 truly valuable mentors who you lean on for advise.

For about 9 months or so I have been building a solid relationship with others in this industry.  In the process I have found that we have shared the same joys and sorrows from different sectors of the industry, stolen clients, getting burned by specialists that claimed they could work anywhere, anytime and the list goes on.  Yesterday I shared one of those core discs without even second guessing myself with this new trusted colleague.  The normal Q&A and interrogation that I put myself through NEVER, and I mean NEVER happened.  The conversation insued and I offered an introductory email to put the two of them in contact.  In the email exchange the normal pleasantries were exchanged followed by my colleague explaining what he was looking for.  The response from my coveted mentor was, “Whatever I have is yours!’

I don’t need to be involved in further communications between the 2 of them because the trust has already been established on both sides.  That valuable contact is his to use now….and by the way it is a POWERFUL contact to have.  The covet effect is a bi-product of the catfish whether you have been stung by the catfish or not.  It is a learned behavior that is passed down by those of us that have been.  The first cousin rule works to a point and has its faults.  The bottom line is that you don’t know a person until you KNOW that person.  It is an HONOR knowing you both.

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