And the challenge continues. For those of you that have not read my post for yesterday, this week I'm challenging myself to learn a lesson in each state that I visit for the week. Today, I was in West Virginia and the lesson for the day just jumped out at me. I guess I need to give you a little bit of background info first.

The school where I teach is a very conservative Christian private boarding school. In other words, we have very strict rules that the students must follow or else they deal with the consequences. No, we are not some extremist cult or anything. However, we do have more rules than the average school.

When we go on trips, our rules follow us. Also, when we set schedules, we expect the students to stick to those schedules, or their grades are affected. In other words – To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late.

We stopped at a mall in West Virginia to get some food to eat at 11:00 am and were scheduled to get back on the bus at 11:45 am. So there we are, rushing to eat so that we can get back on the bus and head to our appointment.

So there we are in the mall at 11:42, and getting ready to head out to the bus. I turn to Subway and what do I see? A group of our kids, standing in the middle of a long line, waiting to order. To make things worse, they had Bags in their hands with clothes that they bought. In other words, on our limited time schedule, it seemed as if it was more important for them to go shopping than to fulfill the purpose we were there from – to nourish our bodies. Now we were behind schedule, and we (the teachers and administrators) weren't too happy.

As almost any faculty at a conservative Christian boarding school would instinctively do, I went to the students and almost rebuked them for wasting time shopping when they should've been in line. Ok, rebuke is a bit harsh, but it sounds better for the story. I really didn't rebuke them, but they could tell that I was not too pleased at what I had seen (or assumed).

At that point, I found out that the bags they had weren't from going shopping and that they had been waiting in line all along and there just wasn't enough time. My assumption had been wrong. In this case, it would have been more beneficial to ask questions first and draw conclusions later.

Things aren't always the way they seem

So how am I going to apply this to Making Money Online? It's pretty simple – Things aren't always the way they seem. You are probably here because you are looking for a way to make money online. You hear about the freebie industry, affiliate marketing and the like and might be a little skeptical. You make judgements about the entire industry based on certain things you've seen in the past.

However, by doing some research you will find out that things aren't always the way they seem. Ask the questions that will help you make an informed decision and come to a VALID conclusions. There are certain things that work and finding out what works for YOU is essential.

Now, this might seem like me just trying to convince you that what I do here is legitimate. To a certain extent, that is true. On the other hand, what I'm saying is actually a two-edged sword. On one side, you can get cut for making judgements against something without doing research. On the other side, you can get cut for blindly believing what you see.

As much as I would like to tell you that what I'm doing is legitimate, the truth is that I would be VERY disappointed if you just came here, read my blog, accepted what I said and jumped in head first. In my opinion, that is equally as bad. With whatever you decide to do in order to make an income online, study it first, ask the right questions, do a search for that term with words like reviews, proof and scam and see what other people have to say about it.

I know that a lot of you are doing that because when I check my statistics I see a lot of searches for “Freebie trading scam”, “freebie proof”, “the freebie guy scam”, which to me sounds bad, but I applaud you for that. One of my personal favorites was “does the freebie guy work”. That put a smile on my face.

The point is, don't make blind judgments or come to blind conclusions. Do research and come to an informed conclusion. Come Back tomorrow for . . . “The West Virginia Lesson” or Tennessee or somewhere else (I don't remember exactly where we are going to be).

About the Author Leslie Samuel


Leslie Samuel a business coach for high-performing entrepreneurs. As the host of the Leslie Samuel Show, he teaches how to build an online business. "Changing the world one post at a time” is the mission he strives towards. As a former university professor, he has a passion for education. He's the founder of Interactive Biology, a blog and YouTube channel dedicated to making biology fun for students and teachers. As the head of training for the Social Media Marketing Society, he helps social media marketers get the training they need to stay on the leading edge of social media.

Get In Touch