Have you ever been screwed over?

Have you ever gone out of your way to help someone only to have them stab you in the back?

I have.

I’m going to guess you have as well.

For me, this happened recently and I’ll share the story with you.

I was helping a struggling gym owner who was six months behind on his rent. He was down and I felt bad for him, so I wanted to help him get back up on his feet.

I have a soft spot for business owners, especially those in the fitness industry.

I put a plan together for him – it was clear he didn’t know what he was doing or he wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place. Our results say it all and his results said that he was clueless.

I even went as far to offer to sit down and do the technical work for him so long as he called 5 people. Of course, he didn’t. Yet I still helped.

Over the course of several months, I would have him check in daily, answer his questions, and set aside time to help him out.

The plan was solid and it had not only worked for me when I owned a gym but has worked for hundreds of other businesses I’ve worked with over the years.

He was excited and chose to work with my marketing team. I gave him the service at my cost because I wanted to help. I’m a sucker for the “down and out” story.

People have helped me out along my journey and I like to pay it forward when given the chance.

He was thankful… at least in the messages, he would send me.

The reality was that he went behind my back and asked my team if they would work with him and other friends of his who owned businesses… outside of my agency so he could get an even better deal – or so he thought.

What he didn’t count on was that my team is loyal. They possess integrity and immediately let me know. They knew that I had missed dinners with my family in an attempt to help this guy out. They knew that I was trying to help him and they were on board trying to do the same.

I was hurt. Hurt turned to anger. And that anger turned into a plan to seek revenge.

Having worked with thousands of clients over the years, one of the biggest fears that people express is that of being screwed over, lied to, and taken advantage of by others.

This fear causes them to close down and put up walls to protect themselves. In the end, they don’t end up living a full life but are always on the lookout for the next person trying to take from them. They are effectively robbed of their ability to achieve complete happiness.

I wasn’t going to let this guy do that to me.

Thoughts of baseball bats and public humiliation danced in my head, but the reality is that people like that end up reaping what they sew.

There’s a reason his business was failing. There’s a reason his personal life is crumbling around him. There’s a reason his social media posts are all of him, his dog, and a front that he’s putting on when in reality he’s failing in all areas. He’s reaping the results of his actions and apparently hasn’t learned their lessons.

Jerks will come… and they will go.

You only have one life to live and in the end, I hope you chose to help the next person out despite the jerk that came before them.

In the end, I was given a great gift. The gift of love. Not from him, but the love my team has for me and what we do. They could have gone behind my back and I might have never found out. That would have been the easy thing for them to do. Instead, they chose integrity and they chose me. That’s worth keeping the walls down.