Is it a good idea to share your secrets? Be aware of the "Business Pirates"

When you have a business idea and it works, sometimes you are so happy that you start telling everybody how good your business is doing and how much money you are earning. It's something completly normal, because we are humans, and humans are social people but business and money are not social.

If you tell me you are a successful doctor, lawyer, or engineer, and that you share your success with everybody, I will tell you, good for you! I'm not telling you that everybody will like to hear about it, but I'm happy that you burned your brains studying a great career and you totally deserve to be proud about your success.

In the other hand, there are business owners and that story is different, I remember a great friend of mine, who is the owner of a gold refinery, yeah you know, the people that make those beautiful gold "bricks" that you see in the movies, by the way they are heavy as you would never imagine, he told me once: "Don't share everything with everybody because not everybody celebrates your success and that includes family". That opened my eyes years ago.

Let's say you are great with kids, you love to work with them, you love teaching them, in fact, it has been your life's dream to own a children day care center. You do your work, design a strategy to start your child care center and it's a great success. Now you're telling your friends and family how good it is, the freedom you have, the income that you are receiving, and as humans your friends and family start to think about what a great idea you had.

Suddenly they realize that you are not a doctor and that they can do what you're doing, they're called "Business Pirates", now you just earned a competitor that you didn't have before and probably lost a friend, because now they look at you strange, you feel that you have to hide everything from them, and beleive me, I've seen it many times.

This even happens with partners, right now I'm reading a book where the author talks about his partner, his life long friend that called him one Friday morning and told him that they were not working together anymore and that by the way he was taking 90% of the customers with him.

My friends it happens even in church, how many times have you heard about a church member that decided to start his own ministry and takes half the church with him, leaving his old pastor inside a storm.

Am I telling you not to help anyone? No, nothing farther from the truth! I'm just telling you, help others start their own business, guide them through the process, even if it's your same area of business, but please make sure that it won't affect you, that they are in an area far enough, or that you have enuogh customers to share the area. Don't share you trading secrets.

People often ignore the hard work, research, and long nights of hard work that you have to pass to become a successful business owner and they think its pure luck, so they want you to share all your "luck" with them. You'll help, that's alright, but they have to work too and find their own business secrets. A family member once told me, you should show me how you do your business and who your suppliers are so I can do the same, when I told him I couldn't, he told me that I could go to hell, I was like, really??? Do you know the amount of years and stress I've been through? At least offer to buy the business but don't expect it for free. Friends, you will be surprised of the things you'll hear, be prepared!

I’ll be bringing you more information about tips and secrets to start your own business in Florida so, leave a comment below. Comment if you have questions you want me to answer about starting a business. I love hearing from you!