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Speaker 1: If you have your own story of being in a

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Speaker 1: cult or a high control group, or if.

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Speaker 2: You've had experience with manipulation or abusive power that you'd

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Speaker 2: like to share.

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Speaker 1: Leave us a message on our hotline number at three

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Speaker 1: four seven eight six trust.

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Speaker 2: That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight.

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Speaker 1: Or shoot us an email at trust Me pod at

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Speaker 1: gmail dot com.

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Speaker 3: Trust Me, trust me, trust Me.

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Speaker 4: I'm like a swat person. I've never lived to you,

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Speaker 4: and we never have a live.

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Speaker 2: If you think that one person has all the answers,

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Speaker 2: don't well. Welcome to trust Me, the podcast about cults,

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Speaker 2: extreme belief and manipulation from two mary Kays who've actually

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Speaker 2: experienced it. And I'm Lola Blanc.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Megan Elizabeth.

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Speaker 2: And today our guest is Robert Fitzpatrick. He is an

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Speaker 2: MLM expert, and he's an author of a book called Ponzinomics,

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Speaker 2: The Untold Story of Multi Level Marketing, as well as

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Speaker 2: several other books. Today, he's going to talk to us

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Speaker 2: about the history of MLMs, when they began, and why

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Speaker 2: they took off in the eighties, and how deeply connected

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Speaker 2: they are to the American dream and economic inequality.

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Speaker 1: He'll take us through some of the major ones you've

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Speaker 1: seen in his years, exposing multi level marketing, how MLMs

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Speaker 1: disconnect people from their identities, and what we can do

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Speaker 1: about it if it's happening to somebody we love.

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Speaker 2: That's right before we dive into this history lesson and

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Speaker 2: other things. Megan, tell me what your cultiest thing of

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Speaker 2: the week is.

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Speaker 1: My cultiest thing of the week is just it's come

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Speaker 1: out that there's been some abuse in the two y

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Speaker 1: two church, and I just want to give people a

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Speaker 1: resource that they can go to if they've experienced it

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Speaker 1: or want to look into what it looks like.

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Speaker 3: It's Voices for Thetruth dot org.

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Speaker 1: That's the group that I grew up in, and I

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Speaker 1: just want to make sure that everybody is taken care of.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, as you should. I'm glad that they're

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Speaker 2: moving forward on this because it sounds like there's lots

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Speaker 2: to uncover.

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Speaker 3: Really there is. What about you? What's the cultiest thing

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Speaker 3: of the week for you?

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Speaker 2: Not as important or series in any way?

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Speaker 3: Great.

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Speaker 2: I was just reading this New York Times article about

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Speaker 2: a man who, in the headline was just described as

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Speaker 2: an aspiring cult leader.

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Speaker 3: Oh my god, who was an.

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Speaker 2: Artist who was basically just like trying to invent like

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Speaker 2: himself as a legend, which I guess everyone does. But

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Speaker 2: he died young, so he didn't get the chance to

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Speaker 2: actually like get to the point that he wanted to

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Speaker 2: get to. But he was this painter. I actually love

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Speaker 2: his paintings. His name is Bradford Bubis.

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Speaker 1: He had a wife that was on those with him, correct,

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Speaker 1: and she died young as well.

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Speaker 2: So his wife killed herself fifteen years after his death.

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Speaker 2: I don't know that they were. It doesn't sound like

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Speaker 2: the cult got very far, but that could just be

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Speaker 2: because that's not what this article is focusing on, right.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like, you know, the quote is that they

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Speaker 2: think the membership was a very small but it was

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Speaker 2: called Life Infinity Man, and it was rooted in humanism

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Speaker 2: and considered the works of man, such as fine art

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Speaker 2: and scientific discoveries to be holy. But I love his paintings.

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Speaker 2: They're very sci fi surreal and like exactly my shit,

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Speaker 2: And it's just interesting because no one really cared about

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Speaker 2: his art at the time. But like, by being a

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Speaker 2: weird personality who wanted to craft himself into something big

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Speaker 2: and important, he sort of is now after his death

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Speaker 2: just because he was this like eccentric character who wanted

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Speaker 2: that for himself or something like the art world is

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Speaker 2: so weird. It's like nobody cares, how very culty so culty,

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Speaker 2: No one cares until I suddenly everyone cares and you're

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Speaker 2: an icon in a legend. But it's like at the time,

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Speaker 2: I think people were like, what's this.

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Speaker 3: Guy to it?

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Speaker 2: He did he had a self published pamphlet biography, so

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Speaker 2: he wrote this. It said, Bradford Bubis is emerging as

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Speaker 2: the greatest artist of our time.

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Speaker 3: Wow, that's so keith r Nare I know?

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Speaker 2: But yeah, nothing that great in his life and now

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Speaker 2: it's now has become the sort of mythical person. Part

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Speaker 2: of the myth of him, though, is that the day

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Speaker 2: that he died, that night his paintings disappeared. So it

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Speaker 2: does have this like era of miss Steak around it.

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Speaker 2: But it just turns out that it was some I

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Speaker 2: guess people who knew him who were trying to keep

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Speaker 2: them safe for something. It's like, not actually that mysterious,

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Speaker 2: and now they've been recovered.

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Speaker 3: I mean that's what I would just assume it was.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but his family was like, they have disappeared, and

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Speaker 2: his nephew went on this quest to like find the

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Speaker 2: paintings again, which he now has. It's an interesting story.

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Speaker 2: When I die, if there's any work that I've done,

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Speaker 2: I would just request that you surreptitiously, like take it

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Speaker 2: away in the night, just to sort of increase my

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Speaker 2: legend status after death thoughts.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, I will do that and if I die or

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Speaker 1: when I die, if I.

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Speaker 2: Die, i't something you want to tell me.

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Speaker 1: I just need everyone to promise to burn every journal

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Speaker 1: and diary I've ever kept.

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Speaker 3: Fair But can I read it first? No? Why No?

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Speaker 2: I love journals. I love this.

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Speaker 3: This is the part that's the favor. Burn it.

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Speaker 2: But you could be like a Nias Nin and it

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Speaker 2: doesn't matter reach iconic status because if your secret private thoughts,

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Speaker 2: I promise, Now, what do you have in there? Megan?

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Speaker 1: Just like really, you know, embarrassing thoughts and repetitive just

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Speaker 1: talking about face. I'm just repetitive, like just embarrassing things.

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Speaker 3: Same way, brinet all and thank you.

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Speaker 2: My journals from the time I was like eight years

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Speaker 2: old are just like why doesn't this boy like me?

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Speaker 2: Am I going to be famous? And now they're like

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Speaker 2: this boy likes me, But I'm depressed anyway, and I

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Speaker 2: don't think I want to be famous, So that's my trajectory.

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Speaker 3: What a what a full circle? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: You know anyway, let's talk about MLMs.

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Speaker 3: Let's get into it. Trust Me is brought to you

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Speaker 2: Welcome Robert Fitzpatrick to trust me.

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Speaker 4: Yes, thank you, and thank you very much for your

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Speaker 4: interest and for inviting me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for being here. So you are an author

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Speaker 2: of several books, including one called Ponzis, and you are

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Speaker 2: considered somewhat of an expert on MLMs. What does it

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Speaker 2: that mean to be an expert on MLMs?

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Speaker 4: Well, multi level marketing is a phenomenon. Let's start with that.

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Speaker 4: It's a phenomenon. It began in the late forties, but

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Speaker 4: it really took off in America in the eighties. It

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Speaker 4: has been controversial from the very beginning. I've personally been

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Speaker 4: in almost forty court cases serving as a consultant or

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Speaker 4: an expert against them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, against them. I'm pro MLM expert.

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Speaker 3: May I asked, what was the first MLM.

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Speaker 4: The very first multi level marketing company? It is Essentially

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Speaker 4: the prototype that all others are based on is called

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Speaker 4: was called Neutralite, and it was eventually taken over by

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Speaker 4: Amway and the two founders of Amway worked at Neutralite

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Speaker 4: for ten years Amway was founded. It was really a

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Speaker 4: subset of neutral and they took five thousand of the

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Speaker 4: recruiters with them. They copied virtually everything from Neutralize and

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Speaker 4: eventually acquired Neutralite.

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Speaker 2: Neutralite sounds like a modern MLM. Like that sounds like

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Speaker 2: a company that would exist today. What were they selling vitamins?

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Speaker 4: Parties of others? Do? Yeah? I mean that, You're right,

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Speaker 4: That's what I meant. All the others that have followed

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Speaker 4: it are essentially modeled on this, and the products that

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Speaker 4: are sold through multi level marketing the predominantly are what

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Speaker 4: they call pills, potions, and lotions, so vitamins and you know,

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Speaker 4: various words that play upon nutrition, health and so on

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Speaker 4: dominate them.

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Speaker 2: Why did it take off so much in the eighties.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it operated in the United States in the fifties sixties,

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Speaker 4: and then in the sixties it really began to grow

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Speaker 4: and several new other MLMs were created modeled on Neutralite.

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Speaker 4: At this point, now hundreds of thousands of people had

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Speaker 4: lost money in them, and complaints began to come into

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Speaker 4: the government, and by the early seventies late sixties, California,

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Speaker 4: for example, passed an anti pyramid scheme law that was

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Speaker 4: one of the first in the country. Prior to that,

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Speaker 4: there would be no reason to have a law against

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Speaker 4: pyramid schemes because pyramid schemes were understood to be inherently frauds.

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Speaker 4: Oh really, and we really need a law. Fraud laws

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Speaker 4: covered it pretty well. But this thing now grew and

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Speaker 4: it claimed to be a business, and it claimed to

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Speaker 4: be a direct selling business. So in the early seventies

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Speaker 4: late sixties, the government began prosecuting these as pyramid schemes,

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Speaker 4: and that realized that they needed to pass state laws

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Speaker 4: that were specific to it. So in the early seventies

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Speaker 4: prosecutions were launched against the three biggest ones, and one

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Speaker 4: of them was Amway, the o there was a company

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Speaker 4: called Holiday Magic, and the third one was called Costcott.

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Speaker 4: And these were hundreds of thousands of people were in

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Speaker 4: them already. Wow. The government did shut down two of them,

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Speaker 4: but Amway they allowed to continue, and at that point,

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Speaker 4: in effect the model got let's say, legalized, and then

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Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty President Ronald Reagan was elected, and Reagan

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Speaker 4: was a big promoter of multi level marketing, and in

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Speaker 4: the first year of his office actually went and spoke

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Speaker 4: at an Amway meeting.

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Speaker 3: Oh no way.

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Speaker 4: So with that kind of government endorsement, the pyramid scheme

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Speaker 4: was allowed to just go and it exploded across the

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Speaker 4: country and then many many others were formed. Herbalife, for example,

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Speaker 4: was formed the very next year, nineteen eighty one.

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Speaker 2: Why do you think that Reagan endorsed that so much?

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Speaker 2: Was it because it sort of embodied this ideal of

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Speaker 2: economic independent and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? Like

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Speaker 2: what was it that made it so appealing in that era?

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Speaker 4: You think, Yes, you've sort of asked me a question

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Speaker 4: that a lot of people only get to very later.

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Speaker 4: But it is the right question. Let's say this. First

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Speaker 4: of all, he was greatly helped in getting elected uh

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Speaker 4: huh by Amway. So there's the.

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Speaker 3: Start campaign money.

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Speaker 4: It's important one factor. Yeah, and there was tremendous effort

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Speaker 4: to get him elected in Amway and other multi level

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Speaker 4: marketing companies. Second, though, is just the one you said,

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Speaker 4: the myth, the story, the narrative around multi level marketing

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Speaker 4: is anybody can be prosperous and wealthy. Right, the economy

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Speaker 4: provides away, The market provides what. You don't need government assistance, unemployment,

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Speaker 4: social security and things like that, because the market, if

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Speaker 4: you were willing to do the work, will provide for you.

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Speaker 4: So the government should not be regulating this. The government

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Speaker 4: should not be really providing welfare or assistance or a

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Speaker 4: safety net. And multi level marketing claims to be exactly

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Speaker 4: that that anybody could become rich, prosperous. You don't need training,

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Speaker 4: you don't need an education, you don't need to learn

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Speaker 4: a foreign language or code or anything like that. It's

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Speaker 4: out there. The was the market will provide. That was

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Speaker 4: kind of Ronald Reagan's theme. And so you know, if

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Speaker 4: that is being taught to hundreds of thousands of people

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Speaker 4: through these companies, then that serves the political class. And say,

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Speaker 4: very well, don't need to call your congressman if you're

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Speaker 4: unemployed or you're underemployed, because listen to the market can

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Speaker 4: provide for you if you will just take advantage of it, right,

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Speaker 4: so don't call us. The congressman can stay out there.

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Speaker 4: I know it's a great political convenience.

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Speaker 1: I will say at the same time, though, you know,

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Speaker 1: I was talking to Lola before we started this interview.

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Speaker 1: There is this sense of like sadness I always get

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Speaker 1: when talking about MLMs, and I know everyone does, but

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Speaker 1: in a different way. Like I know a few people

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Speaker 1: who really think that they're doing something important for the

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Speaker 1: first time in their lives and they're going to start

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Speaker 1: taking care of their family and like this is gonna

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Speaker 1: work out great for them, And then I'll see memes

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Speaker 1: about it that's kind of making fun of it, and

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Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that sucks. I wish that there was

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Speaker 1: a different way to get there to people. But I

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Speaker 1: guess what you're doing, just basic education is what people

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Speaker 1: need to need to know. It makes me sad when

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Speaker 1: people make fun of them. I guess that's what I'm saying.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no is shit.

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Speaker 4: Yeah I don't do that.

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Speaker 3: No, I know you don't.

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Speaker 4: I'm not. Yeah, yeah, and I do it. I don't

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Speaker 4: do it because I have seen, after all these years

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Speaker 4: and from personal experience as well, the enormous power of

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Speaker 4: the multi level marketing pitch, and I've come to see

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Speaker 4: the incredible need that drives people toward MLM and makes

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Speaker 4: them vulnerable to it. I mean, think of what it

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Speaker 4: offers and promises income for all, opportunity for all, unlimited

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Speaker 4: opportunity for all without having to climb a corporate ladder

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Speaker 4: or go and get advanced education or inherit money from

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Speaker 4: your parents or something like that. It is the American dream. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: it captured and it's saying the American dream is alive,

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Speaker 4: and well it's up to you. And people are facing

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Speaker 4: minimum wage jobs, two and three jobs they can't afford

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Speaker 4: to rent or buy, many of them. They burden down

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Speaker 4: now with college debt, health fear is unavailable. So I

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Speaker 4: mean people are under enormous pressure. Of course, the largest

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Speaker 4: segment of people that fall victim to MLM now are women,

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Speaker 4: younger women, and in particular mothers. Yes, so that all

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Speaker 4: that I just described falls most heavily on that sector

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Speaker 4: of the population. So they are seeking, looking, hoping, and

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Speaker 4: then MLM comes along and makes this horribly cruel promise

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Speaker 4: that it is their pathway out of you know, the

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Speaker 4: need that they're facing. So yeah, it isn't something anyone

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Speaker 4: ought to but I see it all the time. I

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Speaker 4: know what you're speaking about a mockery and toward people

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Speaker 4: that are in it, And I think partly that's a defense.

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Speaker 4: So many people have been solicited, millions of people have

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Speaker 4: lost money in it, and then long comes someone who

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Speaker 4: is excited and trying to pitch them, and you know

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Speaker 4: and they The other thing is, how do you respond

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Speaker 4: when you know that it's a scam? You know that

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Speaker 4: over ninety nine percent of the people never make money

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Speaker 4: and can't really that's right?

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Speaker 1: Wow, So I thought that most people. I thought that

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Speaker 1: most people were making money. It was just the people

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Speaker 1: at the very bottom who get screwed. I did not

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Speaker 1: understand that ninety nine percent of the people are set

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Speaker 1: up to fail.

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Speaker 2: Now where does that number come from? How does that

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Speaker 2: how do you arrive at that?

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Speaker 4: Okay, multiple multiple sources, but I'll give you a few.

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Speaker 4: First of all, the MLM industry obviously hides this figure

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Speaker 4: as much as possible, so they are famously obscure in

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Speaker 4: providing data, hard data. But some of them do provide.

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Speaker 4: Many of them actually do provide what they call income disclosures.

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Speaker 4: The disclosures are limited in the way they present the data.

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Speaker 4: You have to do a lot of digging. But again,

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Speaker 4: I've been in court cases where this data was crucial

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Speaker 4: to the argument. Right, if you if you look at

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Speaker 4: those disclosures from the MLM companies themselves and include everybody

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Speaker 4: in it, they are always for just one year, then

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Speaker 4: that number always comes out that the top one percent

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Speaker 4: are getting almost all the money. What you actually did

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Speaker 4: say is true, the people at the bottom don't make money.

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Speaker 4: What's missing in your picture there is that ninety to

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Speaker 4: ninety nine percent are at the bottom.

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Speaker 2: It's like a microcosm of wealth inequality in America in general. Yes,

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Speaker 2: the top one.

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Speaker 4: It is a bit exaggerated, but it's true. The vast

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Speaker 4: majority of people are, and that we hear it all

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Speaker 4: the time. They're podcast saying I'm the ninety nine percent,

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Speaker 4: I'm the ninety nine percent. So but it is true,

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Speaker 4: absolutely true, and it isn't in the US economy. Okay,

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Speaker 4: you can be in the you know, twentieth, thirtieth fortieth

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Speaker 4: you're making money though you're just not making enough to

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Speaker 4: really get by. But in MLM you're not making a profit.

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Speaker 3: It is so interesting.

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Speaker 4: See, this is the This is when you asked me

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Speaker 4: about expertise. This is what it requires. It requires getting

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Speaker 4: past all this mythology, the narrative to spend and all

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Speaker 4: to bore in and the results when you get there

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Speaker 4: are quite amazing and shocking, so shocking that I have said,

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Speaker 4: and as others have MLN is what is called a

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Speaker 4: big lie. The big lie was a term coined literally

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Speaker 4: by Adolf Hitler in Mind comf In his book, a

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Speaker 4: big lie is defined as a lie so outrageously untrue

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Speaker 4: that most people would never believe that someone would have

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Speaker 4: the audacity to tell such a lie. The idea that

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Speaker 4: here's a program that offers opportunity for all wow. In fact,

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Speaker 4: it is a guaranteed loss. You can't just start out

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Speaker 4: at plotten and rise. You need to be you know.

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Speaker 1: So why do I see so many people on online

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Speaker 1: being like I.

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Speaker 3: Just made this much money, I'm going on a cruise.

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Speaker 3: Like what are they talking about?

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Speaker 4: Well, let's say if you're selling a car. Yeah, you

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Speaker 4: can't sell the car by saying, you know, it has

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Speaker 4: a lot of problems, it doesn't start well, it gets

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Speaker 4: terrible gas miles. Okay, do that? You have to start

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Speaker 4: by selling the car by telling the great things about

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Speaker 4: the car. And we all know about car sales how

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Speaker 4: these things can be exactly. But what are you doing

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Speaker 4: online about talking about multi level marketing. You're recruiting, and

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Speaker 4: you're recruiting into an income opportunity. So really, what they're

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Speaker 4: all they're doing is selling. They're embellishing, exaggerating, or just

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Speaker 4: flat out lying. And I don't say that that people

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Speaker 4: are deliberately lying, but they are trained to say, well,

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Speaker 4: fake it till you make a brainwash.

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Speaker 3: It's a cult, their brainwashed.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Remember the legging was the legging company Lula Kay, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: didn't they They were like having these extravagant conventions and

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Speaker 2: like purpose like instructing everyone to show the most vacation.

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Speaker 1: Y, lavish livest thinking about because it seemed like a

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Speaker 1: lot of those people were like their husbands quit their

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Speaker 1: jobs because they were all.

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Speaker 3: Making money like that.

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Speaker 1: One feels like it for a minute in time was

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Speaker 1: raking in the cash.

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Speaker 3: And now of course it all fell.

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Speaker 2: There were people who were I mean, but that's what

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Speaker 2: you're saying. Those were the top people, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, they were the top people, the people

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Speaker 4: that got in at the beginning. And some of those

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Speaker 4: people who were making that money and advertising it are

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Speaker 4: now fervent anti MLM podcasters, Yes, explaining how it was

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Speaker 4: an illusion of making money they actually were getting the

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Speaker 4: money the other people lost.

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Speaker 2: You're not making money for the product money right, right exactly.

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Speaker 4: They got them to buy ten thousand dollars worth of

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Speaker 4: leggings as inventory, and they make a lot of money

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Speaker 4: on that, but those people were now stuck. So that's

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Speaker 4: really not even earning money. That's transferring, right, transferring money.

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Speaker 4: So the impression that we're talking about here, a lot

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Speaker 4: of people make money. This is some kind of mysterious

390
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Speaker 4: we don't know exactly what it is, but a lot

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Speaker 4: of people make money. That's part of that lie.

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Speaker 2: I remember when I was young, my family they didn't

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Speaker 2: end up selling anything, but there was a guy who

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Speaker 2: was trying to sell this like none product that was

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Speaker 2: in retrospect obviously in MLM, and we flew to Atlanta

396
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Speaker 2: and he had this enormous mansion and like seven luxury

397
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Speaker 2: cars in the driveway and he was like, this could

398
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Speaker 2: be you. And it was very enticing because knowing that

399
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Speaker 2: someone is really living like that, you're like, well, why

400
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Speaker 2: can't I be that person? What's stopping me from being

401
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Speaker 2: that person? If they can do it, I can do it.

402
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Speaker 2: It's very even as we're talking about it, and I

403
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Speaker 2: know it's like so obviously a scam. It is hard

404
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Speaker 2: to wrap your head around if it's working for someone.

405
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Speaker 2: Why can't someone be meet?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, why can't I be the one who gets in first? Right?

407
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Speaker 1: Just kidding, that's very selfish, but yeah it is.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And that and going back to our reference

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Speaker 4: to the people that are in it, yeah, that's part

410
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Speaker 4: of the appeal. They've been subjected to exactly the same

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Speaker 4: persuasion machine, and it is very powerful. For example, usually

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Speaker 4: you are introduced by someone you know, right, I trust love,

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Speaker 4: could be a family member, and so right away your

414
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Speaker 4: guard is down, and then this you don't imagine, this

415
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Speaker 4: person could be leading you astray, and then you know,

416
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Speaker 4: you get there and these incredible persuasion themes are presented

417
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Speaker 4: to you, showing you imagery or people with jewelry and

418
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Speaker 4: videos of their vacations and switching. Yeah. Yeah they're driving

419
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Speaker 4: Maseratis and you're driving a Honda, and you know, and

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Speaker 4: you say, why not me? You see that the American

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Speaker 4: dream is a promise that anybody in a way, it

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Speaker 4: is a promise that anyone can make it, you know,

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Speaker 4: And so we already kind of believe that that's our

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Speaker 4: national story, but we're not most people are not they're

425
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Speaker 4: not making it, but you believe that everybody should be.

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Speaker 4: And that's our story. So event along time MLM and

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Speaker 4: says you're right, everybody can and here's the plan.

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Speaker 1: Has anybody you oh sorry, but has anybody you've trusted

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Speaker 1: ever tried to get you into one, like a family

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Speaker 1: member or anything?

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Speaker 4: Oh? Yes, yeah, well yeah, I've had even even after

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Speaker 4: my books came out, I've had family members that got

433
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Speaker 4: in it and and then of course lost and then

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Speaker 4: it was revealed they were and I would say to them,

435
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Speaker 4: why didn't you talk to me? Well, you know, I

436
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Speaker 4: knew you weren't negative, And they told us, don't talk

437
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:32,679
Speaker 4: to negative people that can kind of kill the buzz.

438
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 4: You have to believe, and talking to critics or doubters

439
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:45,639
Speaker 4: or experts whatever, then that's that's you know, that's going

440
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:50,440
Speaker 4: to harm your chance of succeeding. So they literally hid

441
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 4: it from me. But I have had other family members

442
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:57,840
Speaker 4: who did try to persuade me. So I think I

443
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 4: haven't really found a family or person in the country

444
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:05,400
Speaker 4: anymore who hasn't had some encounter with multi level marketing.

445
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 2: Separate from the None debacle, I feel like my childhood

446
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 2: was filled with like parties of women getting together and

447
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:21,160
Speaker 2: trying to sell each other on a cosmetic company, a

448
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 2: kitchenware company, like and become a salesperson themselves. Can you

449
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 2: explain to me the difference between direct sales and MLM

450
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:33,640
Speaker 2: and like, at what point it becomes harmful?

451
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, So in all the discussions about multi level marketing,

452
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 4: most people ask if, first thing, is it a pyramid scheme?

453
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:44,399
Speaker 4: You know it's a pyramid scheme. So, okay, that's a

454
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:48,360
Speaker 4: valid question, and I have a whole story on how

455
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 4: to identify. It's not difficult to identify a pyramid scheme.

456
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:55,679
Speaker 4: But almost nobody asks me, is it direct selling? Really?

457
00:24:56,119 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 4: Because why? Well, actually very few people know what direct

458
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 4: selling is. You have to be a certain age actually

459
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 4: to have directly encountered real direct selling. So direct selling

460
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,920
Speaker 4: was a form of selling, you know, not in stores.

461
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,960
Speaker 4: It was for certain kinds of products that were sold

462
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 4: directly in the home by individuals who worked for a

463
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:25,160
Speaker 4: company that offered various products. The typical there were several

464
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 4: that were very famous. One was called Fuller brush and

465
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 4: that was around up until I don't know, the sixties

466
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 4: or seventies. Encyclopedias were sold this way right. Some home improvements,

467
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 4: aluminum siding and things like that were always sold that way.

468
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 4: A salesperson, and this is the classic direct selling. You know,

469
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 4: went to the customer with their program. They had a

470
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:51,680
Speaker 4: product that they claimed was unique. It was a big

471
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 4: profit margin to the salesperson if they made the sale.

472
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 4: They usually had to go find the prospect too, so

473
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 4: that took a lot of labor and then they got paid.

474
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 4: And they may have had managers behind them. The manager

475
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 4: would get a little bit if you made the sale,

476
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,160
Speaker 4: and maybe the manager's manager would make it, but most

477
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,360
Speaker 4: of the money went right to the salesperson. Now that

478
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 4: model really died out by the nineteen seventies. Who would

479
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 4: want somebody coming to your house to sell you something today?

480
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 4: Who's at home right right? And so? And then who

481
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 4: would need such a person? I mean, everything's available in

482
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 4: stores or online. Why would you need Okay, maybe they've

483
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:45,640
Speaker 4: got something really really unique. They don't. They're selling facial cream, makeup, leggings.

484
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 4: I mean they don't have anything special. So it's a

485
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 4: It isn't dirt. Multi level marketing is not direct selling

486
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:58,200
Speaker 4: at all. It just uses that name. It was created

487
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 4: at a time just when direct selling was beginning to diminish,

488
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 4: you know, and but you had a lot of people

489
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 4: in a new economy looking for work, so they offered

490
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 4: them this idea. It would became the cover story. We're

491
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 4: direct selling. But it differs from direct selling in key ways.

492
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:22,920
Speaker 4: One is, if you're in direct selling, the last thing

493
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 4: on earth you would want is another person selling your product.

494
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 2: Right at the multi.

495
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:31,439
Speaker 4: Level mark, the first thing you do, they tell you

496
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 4: go recruit your next door neighbor, right right, my customer.

497
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 2: One is selling a product and one is selling sales.

498
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, can I tell you guys something for ten seconds?

499
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: Typically One time when I was little, we got to

500
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 1: knock at the door. It was a person selling like

501
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: vacuums or something. So I let them in and went

502
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 1: and got my mom and my mom was like, no,

503
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 1: come here, like and tried to hide me because she

504
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: didn't want to open the door, you know, so she

505
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:58,400
Speaker 1: like hid me in the corner. And then the guy

506
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:05,479
Speaker 1: was like, ma'am, mamur inside, but I'll leave, and we

507
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: were just.

508
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 4: Like I did.

509
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was direct selling. That's a state of

510
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 3: direct selling.

511
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:13,199
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, they believe it or not. There was an

512
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 4: era when strangers came to your door, knocked on the door,

513
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:21,159
Speaker 4: remember let them in. Yeah yeah, and listen to the

514
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 4: spiel and so on. Yeah, but that's all gone. But

515
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 4: in our minds to say someone's in direct sense, it

516
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 4: sounds so innocent. And maybe let's say, you know, kind

517
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:36,719
Speaker 4: of a scrappy entrepreneurial, somebody out hitting the pavement knocking

518
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 4: on doors as if it is occurring, it isn't even occurring.

519
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 4: I'll give you one other We mentioned you wouldn't go

520
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 4: recruit your competitor, Yeah, in your area selling the same thing.

521
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 4: There's a few other things like, for example, to sell

522
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 4: something door to door back then you needed a product

523
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 4: that people couldn't get in stores, or you had to

524
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 4: go to a customer that couldn't get to a store

525
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 4: rural area. None, if that's true anymore. The other thing

526
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,720
Speaker 4: is when you made a sale, you got most of

527
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 4: the money as the salesperson. Your manager's got a little

528
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 4: piece of it. If you look, and I've had to

529
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 4: do this too many times in court cases. Look at

530
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 4: the pay plan of a multi level marketing company. Fifty

531
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 4: percent of all the commission on each sale ultimately goes

532
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 4: to the top one percent. Fifty that's why they have

533
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 4: all the money, and then the rest of it is

534
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 4: sprinkled down to all those others and it's insufficient. You know.

535
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 4: You asked me also about verification of the ninety nine

536
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 4: percent number. One of the first places that it was

537
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 4: actually set out loud in national media was on the

538
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 4: John Oliver Show. And what all John Oliver Show did.

539
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 4: It was a whole show dedicated to debunking multi level marketing,

540
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 4: a pyramid scheme. But he took and put on the

541
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 4: screen the disclosure of one company and it showed that

542
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 4: ninety six percent of the people in it had never

543
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 4: received any commission.

544
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 3: Any commission.

545
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.

546
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,479
Speaker 4: That is because to start getting commissions, you have to

547
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 4: have recruited a certain number of people and bought a

548
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 4: certain amount of product. So they put you on a

549
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 4: treadmill from the beginning where you're buying, buying, working, but

550
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 4: you're not actually but they're saying, but pretty soon you're

551
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 4: going to get up there and you'll be getting that money.

552
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 4: By then, most of the people quit and they get

553
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 4: replaced by the next set of victims. And so he

554
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 4: just showed the data, and there are many many other

555
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 4: examples of that. The Amway was prosecuted in England. They

556
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 4: gathered the data ninety nine percent. Same happened in India.

557
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 4: So it's it's actually not any secret number. Does it

558
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 4: require hacking or you know anything? Right that to get

559
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 4: the number. It's out there.

560
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 2: You didn't have to get that number.

561
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.

562
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 2: It is shocking. It's shocking. I would my head, it

563
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 2: would be like sixty five, same sixty five.

564
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: That's why, like, if I see somebody doing it, I'm

565
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: not like, you are in a dangerous situation.

566
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, maybe they're making money. I don't know.

567
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 1: I mean that's sad, but whatever. But you know, like, wow,

568
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna have to be a little bit more outspoken,

569
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 1: I think.

570
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in my head, I have companies from my

571
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 2: childhood were these MLMs.

572
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 3: Avon.

573
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 4: Avon was never multi level marketing up until around two

574
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 4: thousand year two thousand, okay, and and then it became

575
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 4: multi level. But it kind of gradually went into it

576
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 4: too late, you might say, because again the direct selling

577
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 4: model was disappearing. Avon, you know, ultimately the US division

578
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 4: was sold off. It's owned by a Brazilian multi level

579
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 4: marketing company now m.

580
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,240
Speaker 2: Nice Okay, so it is so now it is it

581
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 2: is okay, okay, and was Tupperware.

582
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:58,240
Speaker 4: So Tupperware again was a also almost declining into almost nothing.

583
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 4: Today it is it stopped, it's sold on the stock Exchange,

584
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 4: has dropped to almost nothing. It's in a lot of trouble.

585
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 4: Great decline. But it was what they called a party plan,

586
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 4: and Tupperware, I would say, was more like direct selling.

587
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 4: It did use the party plan, but it had at

588
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 4: the beginning a fairly unique product. Of course, it's not

589
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 4: unique now, I mean, you know, kitchen things like that.

590
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 4: So it tried, it began to decline. It started selling

591
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 4: vitaminsware did makeup yes, and health health so called health

592
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:40,959
Speaker 4: products and so on. It tried selling in stores.

593
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 3: For a while Tupperware makeup Wow.

594
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, but sort of hit the same saturation point. At

595
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 4: a certain point. It became a bit of a scam

596
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 4: because Okay, you'd have a party and you'd get some

597
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 4: top aware product. That's good, But then they would try

598
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 4: to recruit you to become a Topperware, you know, party promoter, right,

599
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 4: So in other words, you ended up being on this chain.

600
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 4: If you couldn't recruit a big chain some people and

601
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 4: each person on the chain couldn't really make money, but

602
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 4: if you could get a huge chain of all these losers,

603
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 4: you could make money.

604
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 3: So yeah, losers and quotation. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that's

605
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 3: an important he quotation.

606
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: Topwar parties when I was a kid were like my favorite.

607
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 2: They were lit, there was such good food. Everyone was

608
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 2: so joyful and cheery. It was like women so happy

609
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 2: to be away from their husbands and the kids all

610
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:41,239
Speaker 2: got to play with each other, like I thought, it

611
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 2: was so fun.

612
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, parties were where I was at.

613
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know that, that's for sure. And I

614
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 4: think many people say that too. And even Mary Kay parties.

615
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 2: Oh Mary Kay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I loved Mary Kay parties.

616
00:33:56,120 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 4: Wait are they pardon? It is for sure?

617
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 3: Fuck?

618
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:08,720
Speaker 4: Yes, it's actually uh it's actually quite a large scale

619
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 4: presence online of Mary Kay victims. Wow. And so if

620
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 4: if you just if you just google, you know, Mary

621
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 4: kay pyramid scheme, you'll you'll find them a huge number

622
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 4: of people. Uh. The truth is to go to a party. Okay,

623
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 4: there's not much you know, this can be fun, very

624
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 4: little harm. You might get sort of strong armed into

625
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 4: buying something you didn't need, but hey, it's your neighbor.

626
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 4: You know, that's very different from signing up to be

627
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 4: a person and banking you know, your sold income on it,

628
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:50,320
Speaker 4: expending taking money from the household budget to finance the scheme,

629
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 4: and then actually having to go and hit on your

630
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,440
Speaker 4: friends and family to you know, sign up behind you.

631
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 4: That's a totally different thing. Yeah, Mary case quite predatory

632
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 4: in that same way as all MLMs.

633
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 2: Or what got you interested in this? How did you

634
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 2: start debunking MLMs?

635
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 4: Yeah? I started not by plan of any kind at all,

636
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 4: but I was living in South Florida and this was

637
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 4: in the nineteen eighties and a friend approached me about something.

638
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 4: It wouldn't quite describe it. A new program. It's helping

639
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:34,839
Speaker 4: people get money. It's based on a way of a

640
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 4: different way of thinking about prosperity, abundance, freedom, distribution of money.

641
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 4: Can't explain it. You have to come to a meeting

642
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 4: to see it. It's called the airplane game. That's what

643
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 4: they called it, the airplane game, the airplane game. Generically,

644
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 4: these things are called gifting schemes. It's been on the

645
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 4: Oprah Winfrey Show, It's been on NBC. I was on

646
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 4: in the NBC Show, NBC News talking about it. Millions

647
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 4: of people have been in these schemes and many of

648
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,399
Speaker 4: them are prosecuted. It is a pyramid scheme and it's

649
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 4: based on recruiting other people, and it's straight money. There's

650
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 4: no product. But the story is that it works, that

651
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 4: it's a plan for creating prosperity of cooperation instead of competition,

652
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 4: that it taps into that there's enough for everybody, that

653
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 4: the scarcity that we're experiencing today is all in our head.

654
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 4: We would think differently, everybody could have what they needed. So, okay,

655
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 4: sounds great. How does it work? So it's a pyramid

656
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 4: scheme one, two, four, eight. The eight people at the

657
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 4: bottom give their money to the top person. And it's

658
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 4: a little difficult to explain without a graph, but it's

659
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 4: not complicated. And basically eight people give their money and

660
00:36:55,800 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 4: to join fifteen hundred dollars. So when you join, you

661
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 4: put in fifteen hundred, you take one of those eight positions,

662
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 4: and then when you move up to the next level,

663
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 4: the next level, when you get to the top, the

664
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 4: bottom eight will give you their fifteen that's twelve thousand dollars.

665
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 4: This could happen in a matter of two or three days.

666
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 4: So when I was invited to this, there were people

667
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 4: who now pulled up. There was meetings held in the homes.

668
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 4: They drove up in their new BMW's. They came up

669
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 4: and said, all my credit card has gone I'm buying

670
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 4: a house, my credit card dead, has been wiped out,

671
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:37,719
Speaker 4: and so on, beaming with happiness, excitement. The whole room

672
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,479
Speaker 4: is electrified with excitement. The people in the room looked

673
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 4: just like me, professional people, educated people. What's not to

674
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 4: like here? I mean, of course, unless you have to

675
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 4: check your mind at the door, so to speak. But

676
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 4: with all this money being talked about and these people

677
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,320
Speaker 4: looking and you trust them, that was the way it

678
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 4: generated thousands and thousands of people, and I joined. Now

679
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 4: the thing collapsed in a few weeks after that, no,

680
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 4: and and it was identified in the news media as

681
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 4: pyramid scheme. And of course at that point reality dawned,

682
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 4: and for me it was an epiphany, like, how in

683
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 4: God's name did I not see this? How could I

684
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 4: have believed such a thing could exist? Some kind of

685
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 4: secret programs would you know, end poverty in the world?

686
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 5: And I had a degree in sociology, I had worked

687
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 5: in anti poverty prograss I worked in industry, so how

688
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 5: and so I wanted to know what was this thing?

689
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 4: Well, pyramid scheme? Well, what the heck is that? I

690
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 4: didn't really know what a pyramid scheme was, so I

691
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 4: began to look to try and read everything I could

692
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 4: find on the history of pyramid schemes. To my dismay,

693
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 4: wasn't much written about it. So I decided, you know,

694
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 4: I'm going to write something about my experience here. I

695
00:38:57,360 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 4: went to some of the other people who were in it,

696
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 4: and it was it's like, hey, Bob, get over it,

697
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 4: you know, move on. They won't talk about it.

698
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think there was shame? People just had shame.

699
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 4: Shame. People had recruited their friends who lost their fifteen

700
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:16,399
Speaker 4: hundred dollars and wanted it back. Shit, right, So yeah,

701
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:22,439
Speaker 4: it broke up a lot of friendships and families and so. So. Yeah,

702
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 4: well I was just to complete it while I was

703
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:28,399
Speaker 4: planning to write something about it. Multi level marketing sort

704
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 4: of exploded in South Florida. By now we're up into

705
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 4: the nineties, and all these white collar oriented MLMs were

706
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 4: appearing that was selling health products, environmental products and so,

707
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:44,399
Speaker 4: and the very same people who were in the airplane game.

708
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 4: No contacted me, wow, with the same thing. And by now,

709
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:53,240
Speaker 4: of course I'm very knowledgeable. Yeah, so I'm saying, listen,

710
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:56,360
Speaker 4: it's a feramids game. No, no, no, you don't understand.

711
00:39:56,440 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 4: This is legal. This is a business, and it's called

712
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 4: multi level marketing. So I realized when I looked at it,

713
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 4: I said, oh my god, this is nothing but the

714
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 4: airplane game with a product. Instead of fifteen hundred dollars,

715
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 4: you buy fifteen hundred dollars. Was the same scam. So

716
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 4: I began researching that. To my amazement, very little written

717
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 4: about it, and I could see it was sweeping through

718
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:24,919
Speaker 4: South Florida. Well, of course, it was sweeping all over

719
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 4: the country. So that led to writing a book, and

720
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:30,720
Speaker 4: that was my first book. It came out in nineteen

721
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 4: ninety seven. It was called False Profit. It was the

722
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:39,239
Speaker 4: first book ever to examine multi level marketing critically. And

723
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,719
Speaker 4: so right after it came out, I was contacted by

724
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 4: CBS sixty Minutes to come to New York and appear

725
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 4: on a story that they were doing about a multi

726
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 4: level marketing. And then right after that, I was contacted

727
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 4: by attorneys who were suing Amway, and they needed expertise,

728
00:40:57,680 --> 00:40:59,280
Speaker 4: so that sort of set me off.

729
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 3: On that, right.

730
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:00,879
Speaker 4: Yeah.

731
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,399
Speaker 1: Can I just really quickly ask how the airplane game

732
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 1: fell apart?

733
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 4: And the airplane game fell apart in the area I

734
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 4: was in, Yeah, because the county Sheriff's department came and

735
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 4: arrested people, I said, put them in handcuffs. I see it,

736
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 4: and said, this is a pyramid scheme. So the law

737
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 4: was not forced.

738
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 3: Wow, got it.

739
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 4: That's how. Now. That didn't stop it though, because it

740
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 4: changed names and it reappeared under many different names. I

741
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 4: mentioned Oprah Winfree when she did a show was in

742
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 4: the early two thousands, and the big one then was

743
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 4: called Women Helping Women. That wow, So it changes names,

744
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:43,919
Speaker 4: but it's always the same, exact same, right.

745
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 3: That's that's so interesting.

746
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 2: It's like, in my head, pyramid schemes are selling just

747
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:52,440
Speaker 2: like wealth and this like lavish lifestyle, but they're selling

748
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:56,839
Speaker 2: all kinds of ideals and dreams and values, right, Like,

749
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 2: that's that's obviously appealing to something that I find I'm

750
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:00,800
Speaker 2: very appealing.

751
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and women helping women. I'm a woman, I'm want

752
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:06,240
Speaker 1: to help woman. What was women helping women even selling?

753
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 4: Well? This what you said? Wealth? They were selling wealth.

754
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,360
Speaker 4: They were selling a story, a story around wealth. Ultimately,

755
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 4: they're selling wealth because just as in the Airplane Game, Hey,

756
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 4: you could take fifteen hundred dollars and make twelve thousand

757
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,719
Speaker 4: dollars in a few days or a few weeks maybe,

758
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 4: and you can do it over and over again. See,

759
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 4: once you got your twelve thousand, you could come back in.

760
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 4: So in the Airplane Game when I was in it,

761
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 4: some people had made already one hundred thousand dollars. Remember

762
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 4: this is nineteen eighties dollars, so we're talking a lot

763
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:41,840
Speaker 4: of money there. Wow.

764
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:42,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, true.

765
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:44,839
Speaker 3: Now I'm kind of wanting to join the Airplane game.

766
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you say, I described the new age sort

767
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:58,720
Speaker 4: of narrative of benevolence, prosperity, sharing, abundance. It's a wonderful,

768
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 4: heartwarming story that basically says, your your your troubles can

769
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 4: be wiped away quickly with this if you will just

770
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 4: shift your thinking on this. So now MLMs have captured feminism, environmentalism,

771
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 4: the sharing economy, the service economy, and they've the gig economy.

772
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 4: They have they will use whatever is out there that

773
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 4: sounds legit or uplifting. Right, you're on your own, but

774
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 4: you're not. You're working for yourself, but you're not by yourself.

775
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so similar to cults. I mean, there is

776
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 2: a cult for every possible ideal and value and dream

777
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:47,840
Speaker 2: and goal that you can imagine. And it sounds like

778
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 2: I didn't realize MLMs were so wide ranging and what

779
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 2: the what the story was that they're selling people?

780
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,800
Speaker 4: One more thing too, I think since you're speaking about cults,

781
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 4: uh to ask me what what is multi level marketing?

782
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:04,400
Speaker 4: You know, we've talked a lot about it here. Normally

783
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 4: I say, it's a cultic racket. So it is not

784
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 4: a business is that we talked about earlier. It's not

785
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 4: direct selling, So what is it? It's a racket. It's

786
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 4: a racket. So a racket is a scheme, a lie

787
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 4: to get your money with a false story. That is

788
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 4: what it is. But it's not just that because rackets

789
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 4: can be done kind of one person at a time.

790
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 4: This is a cultic racket, so it has a big story.

791
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 4: It enrolls millions of people, and in order to do that,

792
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 4: it has to dominate your mind. And the definitions of

793
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:45,800
Speaker 4: cults usually involve that it is an abusive, dominating thought

794
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:51,440
Speaker 4: control program in which people are exploited for their labor

795
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 4: or their sex or something like that. You know. So

796
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 4: the cult is taking from the members and it is abusing,

797
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 4: and how does it do that by persuading people and

798
00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 4: using abusive persuasion methods. So they dominate your behavior. They

799
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:11,280
Speaker 4: tell you have to you know, don't talk to critics,

800
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 4: come to these meetings. They dominate your information. They fill

801
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 4: you up with this narration and tell you don't don't

802
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 4: read anything, just think about this, listen to tapes, listen

803
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:25,720
Speaker 4: to books. That's why many MLM people are called bots.

804
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:31,440
Speaker 4: You've probably heard that. People say say that, well, there's

805
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 4: there's a theme on the in and the podcasts that

806
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:37,200
Speaker 4: are all over the place now, or in the anti

807
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 4: MLM reddit which has seven hundred thousand subscribers in it,

808
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 4: where they use the term hunbot. So the idea idea

809
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 4: being it's a person who's sort of acting robotically and

810
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 4: faking intimacy, familiarity, wow, you know. So, and then they

811
00:45:57,080 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 4: dominate your time and your constant. You're told to recruit.

812
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 4: If you're failing, you're just not putting enough time into

813
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 4: this and so, and then they appeal to your emotions

814
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:09,560
Speaker 4: at a very deep level.

815
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:11,880
Speaker 2: You just shout out the Steve Hassen bite model.

816
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:16,239
Speaker 4: I just gave it to you in a nice quick way.

817
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:19,399
Speaker 4: It's not original to anybody. This has been developed over

818
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,320
Speaker 4: many years. You know, this idea of how a cult,

819
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 4: but it is a very quick, easy way. If you

820
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 4: around something like that, then you know it's really a

821
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 4: good a good quick way to say this is dangerous.

822
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: Well, just like cults, I feel like there are some

823
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 1: narcissists in it, knowing that they're doing something bad. But

824
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,919
Speaker 1: then when you watch the Lularu why is that name

825
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 1: so weird? Lularo whatever documentary.

826
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 3: You can see some still good people who.

827
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:48,359
Speaker 1: Are like no, I mean I think that they might

828
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 1: be good being like no, it really does work like

829
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: and they're so trapped in like an alternate reality that

830
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: you cannot get through to them.

831
00:46:57,719 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 3: It's so strange.

832
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's two different kinds of people I think

833
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:03,560
Speaker 1: stuck in it.

834
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 2: Well, yes, it makes I mean, it's the same thing too.

835
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:11,760
Speaker 2: We're like in a cult. You've definitely invested like your time,

836
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 2: probably your relationships, off frequently your money. But the amount

837
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 2: of money that people are sinking into this, like I

838
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 2: imagine it gets harder and harder to acknowledge that that

839
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 2: was all for not it's alwayted just like yeah, some cost.

840
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, most people get into multi level marketing at some

841
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 4: vulnerable point in their lives, you know, of course, unemployed, divorced,

842
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:41,239
Speaker 4: lost a boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, partner of some kind, or

843
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 4: maybe they just had a child and now it's like, well,

844
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 4: what's next for me in my life? Anyway, everybody's got

845
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 4: these in their lives. So that's very typical of what

846
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 4: is the MLM is a utopian cult too, is that

847
00:47:56,080 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 4: it's promising you amazing things, freedom from debt, a life

848
00:48:00,920 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 4: of independence, freedom of time, and so it is a

849
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:11,320
Speaker 4: wonderful promise, a wonderful story that if it were true,

850
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:14,720
Speaker 4: it would be it would be truly in paradise. Yeah,

851
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 4: so that it's a in addition to that they do well.

852
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:22,400
Speaker 4: The bite you know sounds okay quick like that, but

853
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 4: these things are really quite powerful in the way they

854
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:31,399
Speaker 4: can dominate people's time and take over their mind. One

855
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:34,360
Speaker 4: obvious clue if if you will go to a job,

856
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 4: the typical interviewer for a job would probably tell you

857
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:41,879
Speaker 4: about the work, the product, the hours, and the pay.

858
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 4: If you brought come into an MLM meeting, they'll say, well, Megan,

859
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:51,960
Speaker 4: what do you want in life? What are your dreams

860
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:57,840
Speaker 4: in life? And what have you wanted but haven't yet gained,

861
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,240
Speaker 4: or even what are you disappointed with that you haven't

862
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:07,799
Speaker 4: achieved yet. So in effect, they extract from you a confession.

863
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:14,400
Speaker 3: Got scientology. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

864
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:16,879
Speaker 4: So you know right away you should you know, if

865
00:49:16,920 --> 00:49:20,320
Speaker 4: you understand how that works, you should say, you know, actually,

866
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 4: that's really none of your business. We're here to talk

867
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 4: about work or a job. So that's a clue that

868
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 4: they are moving in quickly. And then they will attach

869
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 4: the MLM promise to the specific things you mentioned. You know,

870
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 4: I'm lonely, I want community, I'm in a boring job.

871
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 4: I want more, you know, excitement, I'm not making enough money,

872
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 4: I need more. Whatever it is, they are told how

873
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 4: to connect MLM to that specific right.

874
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 2: A job should be a job, and like, maybe you

875
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 2: love your job and it's more than a job to

876
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 2: you because it gives you purpose. But the end of

877
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:02,719
Speaker 2: the day should not be dominating your life.

878
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 4: Now, it's not your life. It's it's tough. One other

879
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 4: thing that they often do as well is disconnectct you

880
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 4: from your identity and reality. For example, if you say, well,

881
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 4: you know, if you resist anything they're saying, they'll say, well,

882
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 4: you know the way you're thinking right now, the friends

883
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:30,280
Speaker 4: you have, how's it working for you right so? Well,

884
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:33,320
Speaker 4: you know, I'm driving an old car. I can't afford

885
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:36,840
Speaker 4: health insurance. See that's what we're saying. It's that kind

886
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 4: of you know, all that you are right now, all

887
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 4: these friends you have, the way you think, that's what's

888
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:44,960
Speaker 4: been holding you back. So what they're going to ask

889
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:47,799
Speaker 4: you to do is kind of disconnect, sort of put

890
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:50,719
Speaker 4: all that aside, all that you think is real, all

891
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 4: these people you thought you trusted, leave them behind and

892
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:58,959
Speaker 4: just listen to what these you know, masters have to say.

893
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 4: Listen the driving a Rolls Royce or a Cadillac Escalade

894
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:08,479
Speaker 4: or whatever Mercedes you're in the Toyota, who's right here?

895
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:10,080
Speaker 4: So the should you listening to?

896
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 3: How do you get them out after that?

897
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:14,279
Speaker 1: How do you get somebody to leave it after they've

898
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,440
Speaker 1: been sold this bag of promises?

899
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 4: Well not easily. I can say that for sure. I

900
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 4: can describe how people get in it. I can present

901
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:28,280
Speaker 4: the warning signs. I can describe what it is once

902
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:31,000
Speaker 4: they're in it as a cult of racket that it

903
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:34,520
Speaker 4: is not direct selling, that they're being defrauded and exploited.

904
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:37,640
Speaker 4: But when somebody is a believer, when they you know,

905
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 4: as they say, drunk the kool aid, they have their

906
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:44,920
Speaker 4: hopes connected to this. They have sort of stepped away

907
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:49,239
Speaker 4: from their objective. Let's say the anchors that used to

908
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 4: tell us what was real, like a friend saying, snap

909
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 4: out of it.

910
00:51:52,760 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, the tyota. We're not listening to them anymore, right.

911
00:51:56,080 --> 00:51:58,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're not listening to them, even your family members.

912
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:01,279
Speaker 4: And so when you don't listen to them, I've seen

913
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:05,360
Speaker 4: many people get divorced over this because one spouse or

914
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:08,359
Speaker 4: another just says, you know, I'm going to go this way,

915
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 4: and the other saying, you know, you're sapping all our resources.

916
00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 4: And that's the end of it. I mean, you get

917
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 4: somebody out. You know, there's there are some techniques for it.

918
00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:21,759
Speaker 4: Mostly you try to get people get back to objective reality.

919
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:24,280
Speaker 4: How much have you made, how much have you spent?

920
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 4: Have you looked at that? You try to get them

921
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 4: back in touch with their actual dreams. See MLM tells

922
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:35,320
Speaker 4: you you wanted to be maybe you wanted to be

923
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 4: an auto mechanic or to run an automachic. W Well,

924
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 4: you're not doing that, you're selling soap, you know. So

925
00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 4: to get them back to these things, to try and

926
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 4: reconnect them with existing relationships, to remind them that the

927
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:52,799
Speaker 4: people talking to you love you. Actually they're not trying

928
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:56,919
Speaker 4: to harm you. To remind them of that. So, yeah,

929
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 4: the one thing you don't do is confront them, tell

930
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 4: them they're wrong. You know, they've fallen into a trap.

931
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:06,240
Speaker 4: They were stupid for doing this. You know, they should

932
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 4: have known.

933
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 2: It's the same. It's the same like with any cult.

934
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:12,359
Speaker 2: I mean, when their identity is so wrapped up in

935
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:14,719
Speaker 2: this thing that they've you know, given so much of

936
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 2: their life over too. It's essentially like saying you as

937
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:19,480
Speaker 2: a person are.

938
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 3: Bad, So be curious, just ask questions, right yeah.

939
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:25,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's you know, we're saying it's like a cult.

940
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 4: It is a cult. It is a cult. That's That's

941
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 4: what I tried to explain in my book is that

942
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:34,279
Speaker 4: it's very hard for us to imagine a cult one

943
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 4: of this scale. Two, that it's business. Business is about numbers,

944
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 4: work hours. It's not utopian. Very few jobs are utopian.

945
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:50,359
Speaker 4: Very few jobs promise you a fulfilling life they.

946
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 2: Might, except for in the tech tech world.

947
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:55,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the tech sometimes in the tech world they

948
00:53:55,120 --> 00:54:00,360
Speaker 4: do that. But in general, so MLM is an economic cult,

949
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 4: financial cult. It's often called an economic cult. It plays

950
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:09,960
Speaker 4: upon economic myths and the American dream myths. It uses

951
00:54:10,120 --> 00:54:14,760
Speaker 4: the fake language of business and sales. So the money

952
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 4: that is transferred up is called a commission when you

953
00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 4: when you buy this crappy lipstick or whatever it is

954
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:22,280
Speaker 4: that they're selling.

955
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 3: Hey, Mary Kay has some really good colors.

956
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:29,040
Speaker 4: Okay, just kidding, Yeah, yeah, I mean the products don't

957
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:32,359
Speaker 4: have to be bad. No, that's really My point is

958
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:35,920
Speaker 4: that that they but they are not worthy of somebody

959
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 4: screaming and yelling and getting standing on her chair and

960
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:39,719
Speaker 4: thinking their life is going.

961
00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 2: To be changed, right right, right.

962
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 4: So that's the right. I'm trying to get that.

963
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 2: Who are the people who are starting these groups? Because

964
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 2: these companies in quotations the top people. Yeah, because you know,

965
00:54:50,960 --> 00:54:52,719
Speaker 2: in cult it's usually clear there's a leader, and I

966
00:54:52,719 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 2: feel like in MLMs, I'm like, who is doing this?

967
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 2: Like it feels like this is sort of a morphous,

968
00:54:58,040 --> 00:54:59,239
Speaker 2: shadowy organization.

969
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:04,440
Speaker 4: Well, actually they're they're out front, they're identifiable as companies.

970
00:55:04,520 --> 00:55:08,640
Speaker 4: At least there are two hundred of the MLM companies

971
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 4: in the direct Selling Association. They are the biggest companies

972
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:15,760
Speaker 4: in that field. But they're not the ones you would Actually,

973
00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 4: you won't encounter the CEO, you won't encounter the pr

974
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:25,120
Speaker 4: person behind all of them is a group that one

975
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:29,359
Speaker 4: of my colleagues has named vanguards. And these really are

976
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 4: professional hucksters. They are people who are the top recruiters

977
00:55:34,040 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 4: who orchestrate these extravaganza events.

978
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:43,640
Speaker 2: The cruises with the what the cruises, yes yes, and.

979
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:48,719
Speaker 4: The big lie. They orchestrate the big lie. And there

980
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:52,520
Speaker 4: are probably a few thousand of these people who in

981
00:55:52,680 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 4: other worlds they would have been penny stockers, they would

982
00:55:56,080 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 4: have been Ponzi schemers, they would have been crooked door

983
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:04,879
Speaker 4: to door salespeople. But in the past, but MLM has

984
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:09,160
Speaker 4: almost created a platform like a profession for these people.

985
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:13,520
Speaker 4: They're selling the endless chain, the idea that you could

986
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:18,040
Speaker 4: become wealthy by recruiting five who recruit twenty five one

987
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:21,759
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty five Yeah, without showing you that you know,

988
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:23,919
Speaker 4: if you just continued that you'd run out of people

989
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:27,240
Speaker 4: so fast, and that most of the people are always

990
00:56:27,239 --> 00:56:28,560
Speaker 4: going to be in the bottom.

991
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:30,759
Speaker 3: Right, you know, everywhere?

992
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:34,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so that's that's what it is. The face

993
00:56:34,239 --> 00:56:38,319
Speaker 4: of the MLM is a very slick trade group called

994
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:40,920
Speaker 4: the Direct Selling Association. They have an office on K

995
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:47,360
Speaker 4: Street in Washington, where all the other lobbying groups are people. Wow. Yeah,

996
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 4: But the face that really is out there are are

997
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:55,719
Speaker 4: these schemers recruiters, professional recruiters?

998
00:56:55,880 --> 00:56:57,799
Speaker 2: And why are they still allowed to you know what?

999
00:56:58,160 --> 00:56:59,840
Speaker 3: Why are there no regulations against this?

1000
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:04,200
Speaker 4: Well, again, this is I think the reality. Just as

1001
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:07,120
Speaker 4: we said, the reality of a ninety nine percent loss

1002
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 4: rate is so disappointing to think could that be true?

1003
00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:15,520
Speaker 4: I mean shocking and disappointing. First shocking and then oh

1004
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,400
Speaker 4: my god, what if that's true? You mean, all these

1005
00:57:18,440 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 4: people are churning through this thing, placing their hopes in it,

1006
00:57:22,320 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 4: and virtually none of them make money. That's hard. Well,

1007
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:28,880
Speaker 4: the second question, how is it legal? How could it

1008
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:33,960
Speaker 4: be happening? And the answer is similarly disappointing. It's a

1009
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:37,840
Speaker 4: combination of we spoke of it a little bit at

1010
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:42,520
Speaker 4: the very beginning, straight out lobbying corruption. Millions and millions

1011
00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 4: of dollars contributed to political campaigns. Allan, remember Betsy DeVos

1012
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 4: who was in the Trump administration. She is the daughter

1013
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:56,640
Speaker 4: in law of the founder of Amway, what of the founders?

1014
00:57:56,760 --> 00:58:00,520
Speaker 4: Said yeah, and she said at a congressional here her

1015
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 4: family had contributed over two hundred million dollars into political campaigns. Yes,

1016
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 4: so that's just one.

1017
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:10,400
Speaker 3: So on of our education.

1018
00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:11,000
Speaker 1: Wow.

1019
00:58:11,080 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 3: Crazy.

1020
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:14,919
Speaker 4: Yeah. And the second reason we also talked about it's

1021
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:19,200
Speaker 4: the narrative that is very convenient for politicians. Hey, don't

1022
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 4: look at us. It's your fault. If you haven't made

1023
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:25,400
Speaker 4: money totally, you just didn't avail yourself of the opportunity.

1024
00:58:25,640 --> 00:58:29,080
Speaker 2: Economic inequality is your individuality.

1025
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:31,560
Speaker 1: And that's that's the last question I have for you.

1026
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 1: Really like you keep saying the American dream and is

1027
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 1: this as common in other countries or is America especially

1028
00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:40,520
Speaker 1: susceptible to MLMs.

1029
00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:44,920
Speaker 4: I think it's the latter. This was an an American invention.

1030
00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 4: MLM is a pure American contrivance. Part of it, I

1031
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:56,360
Speaker 4: think was it took root in America because of our history,

1032
00:58:56,480 --> 00:59:01,720
Speaker 4: our economy, our our mythology, our American Now that is

1033
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:05,680
Speaker 4: being exported to many other areas of the world. But

1034
00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:11,600
Speaker 4: you don't find that belief people's willingness to just buy

1035
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 4: that so easy. My wife is from Belgium and so

1036
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:17,880
Speaker 4: I spent a lot of time in Europe, and a

1037
00:59:17,920 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 4: lot of people in Europe just think it's American crap,

1038
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 4: you know, they think it's American story. But in the

1039
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 4: US it has it is sort of based on our

1040
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 4: But you know, as we said, America is exporting this,

1041
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:34,920
Speaker 4: not just MLM, but exporting in China. Now they have

1042
00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:38,560
Speaker 4: a thing called the China Dream. It's based on sort

1043
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 4: of the same idea, and it's up to you. You

1044
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,320
Speaker 4: get out there and you do it. I created the

1045
00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 4: word Ponzi noomics for my book because I'm trying to

1046
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 4: capture that MLM is actually a belief system. You've described

1047
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:58,200
Speaker 4: it in your comments so well. Is that you meet

1048
00:59:58,240 --> 01:00:02,720
Speaker 4: people and they appear captivated, almost like religious sellots, and

1049
01:00:03,040 --> 01:00:06,560
Speaker 4: very difficult to dissuade them, almost like they are defending

1050
01:00:06,600 --> 01:00:11,280
Speaker 4: their faith. And so what Ponzienomics is is the economy.

1051
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:16,400
Speaker 4: It's the idea of capitalism about entrepreneurship, work hard, you know,

1052
01:00:16,520 --> 01:00:19,800
Speaker 4: make something of yourself, matched up with the Ponzi scheme.

1053
01:00:20,080 --> 01:00:23,400
Speaker 4: So a ponzi is not capitalism. A ponzi is a fraud.

1054
01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:27,560
Speaker 4: A ponzi is unsustainable, requires deception. So if you match

1055
01:00:27,680 --> 01:00:30,880
Speaker 4: that up, if you're able to connect a ponzi with

1056
01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:35,200
Speaker 4: the existing belief system in free market and make it

1057
01:00:35,240 --> 01:00:38,440
Speaker 4: look like it's actually a viable business, and that's what

1058
01:00:38,640 --> 01:00:43,400
Speaker 4: I define ponziinomics is it's a delusional belief system in

1059
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 4: which the ponzi or pyramid scheme is thought to be

1060
01:00:47,560 --> 01:00:52,600
Speaker 4: economically viable. Well, they've been persuaded of that, and then

1061
01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:57,320
Speaker 4: they've been told that reality is really only shaped by

1062
01:00:57,360 --> 01:01:01,560
Speaker 4: your belief So it doesn't really so much about talk

1063
01:01:01,600 --> 01:01:05,520
Speaker 4: about saturation or loss rates, because if you believe it,

1064
01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:08,840
Speaker 4: if you believe you can do it, you can overcome.

1065
01:01:08,440 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 2: All of that, and that is magical thinking.

1066
01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:13,800
Speaker 4: That is not magical thing. So Ponzi nomics is a

1067
01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:18,280
Speaker 4: delusional belief system that matches up the ponzi with the

1068
01:01:18,440 --> 01:01:19,360
Speaker 4: magical thinking.

1069
01:01:19,600 --> 01:01:20,320
Speaker 3: And then you have a.

1070
01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:26,240
Speaker 1: Lot of leggings, a lot likes leggings, or a garage

1071
01:01:26,240 --> 01:01:27,520
Speaker 1: full of vitamins or soap.

1072
01:01:27,800 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and and haf your friends. You know,

1073
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:33,800
Speaker 4: you've lost and maybe alienated your family too.

1074
01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 2: So that's so interesting. Yeah, this idea of I guess

1075
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 2: I've never heard it really described that way, the way

1076
01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:43,080
Speaker 2: it sort of encapsulates the American dream and kind of

1077
01:01:43,120 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 2: praise upon this myth that we have in this country

1078
01:01:47,040 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 2: in particular, and this extremely capitalistic way of thinking.

1079
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:54,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've done fascinating research on this topic.

1080
01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:57,120
Speaker 3: You really have. I have never thought about it this way.

1081
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 1: My view has changed. So thank you so much for

1082
01:02:00,720 --> 01:02:03,680
Speaker 1: working so hard to make people realize the truth.

1083
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, and really quick. So in the era of social media,

1084
01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:12,320
Speaker 2: one are you seeing it get worse? And two are

1085
01:02:12,400 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 2: there any particular companies that you think are people should

1086
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:18,640
Speaker 2: have their red flags up about right now?

1087
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 4: I think it's hard to know whether social media made

1088
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:26,840
Speaker 4: it worse. It is a fact that MLM, as social

1089
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:33,360
Speaker 4: media evolved and spread became so predominant, multi level marketing

1090
01:02:33,560 --> 01:02:37,360
Speaker 4: leaped in numbers tremendously, But it's hard for me to

1091
01:02:37,440 --> 01:02:41,919
Speaker 4: know whether social media did this because social media also

1092
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:45,680
Speaker 4: has facilitated the anti MLM movement.

1093
01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:46,480
Speaker 3: Right.

1094
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:49,400
Speaker 4: What I can tell you in years past, it was

1095
01:02:49,480 --> 01:02:53,520
Speaker 4: just very difficult for my message to get out, but

1096
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:57,360
Speaker 4: now it's getting out quite quite well. But on the

1097
01:02:57,400 --> 01:03:00,800
Speaker 4: other side is you know, the emlms are spread maybe

1098
01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:04,440
Speaker 4: ten times that volume, but the other side of it.

1099
01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:07,280
Speaker 4: The reason I question it is it is also a

1100
01:03:07,320 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 4: fact that's in the last and this is very verifiable

1101
01:03:11,280 --> 01:03:15,240
Speaker 4: with data from around nineteen, late seventies, early eighties, the

1102
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:20,240
Speaker 4: middle class and everybody really has been sort of sinking aggregately.

1103
01:03:20,320 --> 01:03:24,240
Speaker 4: I know some people have done fabulously well, but statistically

1104
01:03:24,520 --> 01:03:29,240
Speaker 4: more people are sinking, you know, with healthcare costs, rent,

1105
01:03:29,560 --> 01:03:37,920
Speaker 4: unaffordable housing, jobs just paying less wages, stagnated cost of living, roads,

1106
01:03:38,120 --> 01:03:42,040
Speaker 4: and so on, which creates a bigger and bigger market

1107
01:03:42,360 --> 01:03:43,120
Speaker 4: for MLM.

1108
01:03:43,440 --> 01:03:47,560
Speaker 2: Right and income inequality is a breeding ground for us

1109
01:03:47,600 --> 01:03:49,600
Speaker 2: that's right predatory to MLMs.

1110
01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:53,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. And now their market they've added in immigrants.

1111
01:03:54,640 --> 01:03:57,480
Speaker 4: There's a lot of MLMs that focus in on particular

1112
01:03:57,520 --> 01:04:03,440
Speaker 4: ethnic groups. The movie Betting On Zero, which was on Netflix,

1113
01:04:04,160 --> 01:04:07,880
Speaker 4: was a documentary that focused on rbal life and how

1114
01:04:08,000 --> 01:04:12,760
Speaker 4: erbal life had captured and gone after Latino communities. So

1115
01:04:13,760 --> 01:04:17,000
Speaker 4: different ones have gone after different groups. But there's senior

1116
01:04:17,040 --> 01:04:25,960
Speaker 4: citizens now, there's spouses of deployed military people, students, students

1117
01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:28,680
Speaker 4: with debt. This is a a new thing. You know,

1118
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:31,320
Speaker 4: in my ero when people came out of college, you

1119
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:33,560
Speaker 4: didn't you weren't you didn't think, oh my god, I

1120
01:04:33,600 --> 01:04:35,680
Speaker 4: got to pay my debt back. You went out and

1121
01:04:35,880 --> 01:04:39,360
Speaker 4: looked for opportunities to live. Now, first thing is how

1122
01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 4: am I going to pay the debt back? So this

1123
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 4: creates a much larger market. So between social media and

1124
01:04:45,440 --> 01:04:50,680
Speaker 4: that those two interacting that the need growing, and the

1125
01:04:50,720 --> 01:04:56,000
Speaker 4: social media tools that they have used with imagery and

1126
01:04:56,200 --> 01:05:00,800
Speaker 4: you know and false messaging and bots and so on. Uh,

1127
01:05:00,920 --> 01:05:03,520
Speaker 4: it has grown. It has grown. But as I say,

1128
01:05:03,920 --> 01:05:09,440
Speaker 4: so have the voices totally of disclosure, of revelation, of

1129
01:05:10,600 --> 01:05:14,680
Speaker 4: whistleblowing and so on. That's happening right on.

1130
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:19,200
Speaker 1: Well you cannodd our voices to that skill because I'm

1131
01:05:19,240 --> 01:05:20,440
Speaker 1: ready to bite.

1132
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:22,960
Speaker 3: People.

1133
01:05:23,320 --> 01:05:25,600
Speaker 2: Catch you wrap up phrases back and good job.

1134
01:05:29,080 --> 01:05:31,920
Speaker 4: And there are some other books coming. My book was

1135
01:05:31,960 --> 01:05:35,439
Speaker 4: the first one to actually this one pansiinomics that looked

1136
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:38,040
Speaker 4: at the history, where did it come from? How did

1137
01:05:38,040 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 4: it get leal? As you said, is it a cult?

1138
01:05:41,160 --> 01:05:43,920
Speaker 4: How does it how does it internally work with money

1139
01:05:44,000 --> 01:05:48,080
Speaker 4: and pay and so on. So that's the first thing.

1140
01:05:48,120 --> 01:05:50,240
Speaker 4: But there are others coming now I know of at

1141
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:53,600
Speaker 4: least two others that are coming that are going to

1142
01:05:53,680 --> 01:05:56,960
Speaker 4: be quite great. And so that's a breakthrough and there

1143
01:05:57,000 --> 01:06:01,400
Speaker 4: are documentaries in the makings, too few, but there'll be more.

1144
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 2: There's a lot more awareness about it now and you've

1145
01:06:03,720 --> 01:06:06,760
Speaker 2: been contributing to it. So thank you and thank you

1146
01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:07,959
Speaker 2: so much for joining us.

1147
01:06:08,560 --> 01:06:11,960
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you for your interest and for listening to tell.

1148
01:06:11,840 --> 01:06:14,520
Speaker 2: People where they can find your book and you on

1149
01:06:14,560 --> 01:06:15,600
Speaker 2: the internet if you wish.

1150
01:06:15,880 --> 01:06:19,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the book. The book is called Ponzinomics, The

1151
01:06:19,600 --> 01:06:24,320
Speaker 4: Untold Story of Multi Level Marketing. It's available on audible

1152
01:06:24,520 --> 01:06:27,760
Speaker 4: and on Amazon, so it's available as a kindle book,

1153
01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:31,240
Speaker 4: as a paperback book, and as an audio book. That's

1154
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:35,480
Speaker 4: pretty much where to get it. So, and I'm pretty

1155
01:06:35,520 --> 01:06:40,920
Speaker 4: accessible on pyramid scheme alert dot org is a website, nonprofit,

1156
01:06:41,080 --> 01:06:46,040
Speaker 4: non commercial, no ads on it, no sponsors, that has

1157
01:06:46,080 --> 01:06:49,040
Speaker 4: been around for twenty years. I was set that up

1158
01:06:49,240 --> 01:06:53,800
Speaker 4: with some other colleagues which has a lot of information

1159
01:06:54,440 --> 01:06:57,680
Speaker 4: on the whole the wider subject of multi level marketing

1160
01:06:57,680 --> 01:06:58,600
Speaker 4: and pyramid schemes.

1161
01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:00,920
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, thank you so much for joining us.

1162
01:07:00,920 --> 01:07:02,080
Speaker 3: Thank you pleasure.

1163
01:07:02,280 --> 01:07:08,760
Speaker 2: Okay, there ends that interview. Megan. You mentioned something about

1164
01:07:08,800 --> 01:07:11,720
Speaker 2: how you kind of just joined in. M Can you

1165
01:07:11,720 --> 01:07:12,640
Speaker 2: explain what you were saying?

1166
01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:15,680
Speaker 1: Well, Okay, can I just yes, please, let me just explain.

1167
01:07:15,880 --> 01:07:19,200
Speaker 1: Rodent and Fields, the face company. So they're kind of

1168
01:07:19,200 --> 01:07:22,120
Speaker 1: an MLM, but their ship is so good that I

1169
01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:22,919
Speaker 1: kind of don't care.

1170
01:07:23,120 --> 01:07:23,560
Speaker 3: I don't know.

1171
01:07:26,120 --> 01:07:28,880
Speaker 2: But you're not like trying to be like to sell

1172
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:30,040
Speaker 2: it right, No.

1173
01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 1: But you have to like sign up to be somebody

1174
01:07:32,120 --> 01:07:34,320
Speaker 1: who could in order to buy it, which I'm like,

1175
01:07:34,360 --> 01:07:35,200
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous.

1176
01:07:35,320 --> 01:07:36,520
Speaker 3: That is so sketch.

1177
01:07:37,320 --> 01:07:39,200
Speaker 2: And so what do you like about the products though?

1178
01:07:39,320 --> 01:07:41,919
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't really want to say, because I should.

1179
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:44,800
Speaker 3: We should provide absolutely.

1180
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:48,320
Speaker 2: So tell me why it's the best skincare out there.

1181
01:07:49,120 --> 01:07:52,000
Speaker 3: No it's not. It's not even a skincare product.

1182
01:07:52,080 --> 01:07:57,000
Speaker 2: So okay, all right, listen, some bad sometimes bad companies

1183
01:07:57,080 --> 01:07:58,120
Speaker 2: make good products.

1184
01:07:58,200 --> 01:07:59,360
Speaker 3: I know it happens.

1185
01:07:59,720 --> 01:08:02,520
Speaker 2: That's cool, man. Have you ever any other MLM encounters

1186
01:08:02,520 --> 01:08:03,360
Speaker 2: that we didn't get into?

1187
01:08:03,640 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 3: No, no, what about you?

1188
01:08:05,400 --> 01:08:07,000
Speaker 2: I think I talked about them. It was like, no,

1189
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:08,320
Speaker 2: ny Mary kay.

1190
01:08:08,600 --> 01:08:13,080
Speaker 1: Tupperware knives were a big one. We did buy some

1191
01:08:13,160 --> 01:08:14,280
Speaker 1: knives from somebody once.

1192
01:08:14,520 --> 01:08:14,680
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1193
01:08:14,720 --> 01:08:15,840
Speaker 2: I never got into knives.

1194
01:08:16,080 --> 01:08:17,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like somebody.

1195
01:08:16,880 --> 01:08:19,160
Speaker 1: Brought us a big thing of block of knives, and

1196
01:08:19,280 --> 01:08:21,240
Speaker 1: I remember my parents being like, sure, we'll buy this.

1197
01:08:21,520 --> 01:08:23,720
Speaker 2: They cut through something you're not supposed.

1198
01:08:23,439 --> 01:08:24,400
Speaker 3: To cut through. Yeah.

1199
01:08:24,520 --> 01:08:26,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were really pretty too. Plus I add,

1200
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:29,280
Speaker 1: like a peanut butter knife. I'm just remembering this all.

1201
01:08:29,080 --> 01:08:32,600
Speaker 3: Now, sorry, what what is that? It's like a very.

1202
01:08:32,439 --> 01:08:36,040
Speaker 1: Round knife with like jagged edges that makes it so

1203
01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:38,120
Speaker 1: easy to get and spread peanut butter.

1204
01:08:38,280 --> 01:08:41,640
Speaker 2: That is so specific mm hmm and so unnecessary. But

1205
01:08:41,680 --> 01:08:42,320
Speaker 2: do I want it?

1206
01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 3: It's great? Yes, me, so I completely forgot about it. Yeah.

1207
01:08:46,240 --> 01:08:50,519
Speaker 2: I think beauty would definitely be my most vulnerable MLM

1208
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:53,519
Speaker 2: AIA for sure. I don't spend a lot of money.

1209
01:08:53,760 --> 01:08:56,040
Speaker 2: I'm pretty cheap. I usually just buy like the ordinary

1210
01:08:56,120 --> 01:09:00,000
Speaker 2: or something cheap. But if something is like really good, yeah,

1211
01:09:00,120 --> 01:09:02,240
Speaker 2: then I could get really into it. That could for

1212
01:09:02,280 --> 01:09:04,519
Speaker 2: sure become my thing, and then I and I just

1213
01:09:04,560 --> 01:09:07,160
Speaker 2: become a brand evangelist. Anyway, I'm like, have you tried

1214
01:09:07,160 --> 01:09:08,479
Speaker 2: this thing? So it makes sense?

1215
01:09:08,960 --> 01:09:09,320
Speaker 4: Yeah? You know?

1216
01:09:09,479 --> 01:09:09,959
Speaker 3: Completely?

1217
01:09:10,120 --> 01:09:10,559
Speaker 2: All right?

1218
01:09:10,600 --> 01:09:11,120
Speaker 3: Completely?

1219
01:09:11,479 --> 01:09:13,960
Speaker 1: Well, who We're so glad you spent another week here

1220
01:09:14,000 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 1: with us that trust me. We can't wait to see

1221
01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:19,160
Speaker 1: you again next week. And as always, remember to follow

1222
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:23,080
Speaker 1: your gut, watch out for it, and ever ever trust me,

1223
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:28,880
Speaker 1: Bye bye.

1224
01:09:28,160 --> 01:09:30,880
Speaker 2: Trust me. As produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and

1225
01:09:30,920 --> 01:09:32,240
Speaker 2: Steve Delemator.

1226
01:09:31,880 --> 01:09:33,799
Speaker 3: With special thanks to Stacy Para.

1227
01:09:33,720 --> 01:09:36,200
Speaker 2: And our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

1228
01:09:36,360 --> 01:09:39,240
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,

1229
01:09:39,439 --> 01:09:42,800
Speaker 1: Twitter at trust Me Cult Pod, or on TikTok at

1230
01:09:42,840 --> 01:09:44,520
Speaker 1: trust Me Cult Podcast.

1231
01:09:44,680 --> 01:09:48,000
Speaker 2: I'm Uhla Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.

1232
01:09:47,760 --> 01:09:51,400
Speaker 1: And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Bbraham

1233
01:09:51,520 --> 01:09:52,559
Speaker 1: Hicks on Twitter.

1234
01:09:52,720 --> 01:10:00,160
Speaker 2: Remember to rate and review and spread the word.