I have run across a lot of frauds in my time on the internet. I have come up with the conclusion that they are pretty much born that way.
There are just certain people that want attention. Money may be a factor, but there are easier ways of bilking people out of money through various scams.
Wanting attention is not bad in itself. All the Olympic athletes do so for the chance to be known to the world as the best. Bruce Lee, Charlie Chaplin... the names of people you know are probably mainly those that wanted to be known by others.
The thing is, all of them worked damn hard to get to a place where they had a lot of attention paid to them.
I do not believe that many frauds start out on good footing. Kreth's story of how he got teamed up with a guy who wanted to impress him by dropping the fact that he was a street fighter is a perfect example. It starts with small stories, and then the lies get bigger and bigger and the person gets wrapped up more and more in keeping the image alive.
People like Kreth's streetfighter may train for a while, but soon find they are not doing as well as they want people to think. That is when they make the full break to outright fraud.
Take a look at most frauds and you will see deception revolving around making themselves look good in a variety of manners. Find someone who has lied about being taught by an old Asian master and you will probably also find stories about being in the military that are just as false. Frank Dux, Yo Sato, David D'antonio, Jack Stern, etc are all great examples of people who have lied about their military as well as their martial arts experiences.
And I think that they never get to a master level because they are so concerned with how people think of them. The typical master, real master, usually is only known after a few decades of work. If you went back in time before he was known you would see someone falling on their face a lot. If you learn from those experiences you gain a lot. After a lot of mistakes and learning from them they eventually get to a point where they know enough to be repected.
But the fraud starts out caring a lot about what people think. So he tries not to put himself in position where he could make a mistake and be seen. Thus he does not get a chance to learn much from his mistakes. And if most of us made a mistake, we would go out and learn how to correct it. Maybe we would go out and find a teacher that could help us. But the fraud just can't admit what he did was a mistake because he cares so much about his status. He can't drop teaching to go back to being a student. He cares so much about being seen as a master that he can't really admit that he has things to learn from others- no matter what they say.
Wow, this has turned into a long post. But I think some of you will see what I am talking about when you examine some of the frauds you have run across.
