It is so very true about trusting the exchange, you just use them but you don't wholly use them. When you trade, deposit only the amount that you'll be using for trading, none other than that.
You can add to it that you don't have to be hyped with any popular person that gives his insights about the market. Like the typical thing when there's someone popular that gives advice about what he must do and the media hypes it. There were many people that have done the wrong thing of believing those.
I am glad the OP got those realizations. Because up until now, a lot have different outlook towards crypto market. For most who are not yet here, they thought crypto is a scam. But they only need right information to understand what the OP stated. Those simple lessons will give them good approach towards crypto and finding ways how to secure their assets by fraudulent sites and projects.