Episode 60: Zooming In on MLMs Part 2
The Reacher Trailer is here because of the MLM metaphor I share in this episode. He even says, “If you boys knew what’s about to happen to you, you’d leave now.”
The transcript for this episode is below the resource links.
Resources
T.V. Series/Documentaries
Podcasts
Transcript:
Melissa Milner 0:09
Welcome to The Teacher As Podcast. I'm your host Melissa Milner, a teacher who is painfully curious and very easily inspired. In this third season, I explore my interests as the main focus of the episodes. If you have listened to seasons one and two, first of all, thank you. Second of all, this season will be a little different. It will still be centered around interesting topics and their connections to education. I'll continue to have interview episodes, maybe a Top 10 episode here and there since they are very popular, but also some episodes will be just me sharing about a topic. Similar to my Podcasting with Students episodes from season two. New episodes come out every other week. If you enjoy the podcast, please share it with anyone you think would benefit from listening. It really helps the podcast grow. Thank you for supporting The Teacher As. I hope you enjoy season three.
Melissa Milner 1:00
Before I start, I want to explain that I will be saying M L M a lot in this episode. I shouldn't assume that everyone knows what this is. MLM stands for multi-level marketing. I am not an expert on MLMs. The goal of this episode is not to break down all the different MLM companies out there. There are many amazing people already doing that work. On the episode 60 page of The Teacher As... website, you'll find a list of some of the podcasts I enjoy that are providing that crucial education. I am also not about to attempt explaining the MLM model or its history. If you want to understand about MLMs Robert Fitzpatrick is your guy. He's an anti MLM advocate and activist who's been on numerous documentaries, TV shows and podcasts, including mine. Check out episode 59 of The Teacher As... to hear Robert explain the dangers of MLMs. I am thrilled to share that Robert and I are teaming up to create our own monthly podcast that we are hoping will launch in June. Yay. So what is the goal of this episode? I want to share my obsession with this topic and my realization that if I had known certain key facts and red flags, I may have been able to avoid getting sucked in by an MLM after college. Education for teachers, parents, and students is sorely lacking when it comes to MLMs.
Melissa Milner 2:44
So, this may sound like it's not related. But it is. Stick with me. I love a good action show or movie. There are so many that I watch over and over again. Die Hard, the Kill Bill movies, the John Wick movies... Oh my gosh, I love them. And most recently, the Jack Reacher series on Amazon Prime. Have you seen it? I highly recommend it. Finally, a Jack Reacher who looks the way the author intended him to look. I was watching one of the episodes and was hit by a random MLM metaphor. You know in action movies, there are a bunch of guys in a scene attacking the hero? And clearly the hero is going to win. The attackers watch as one, two or three of their buddies at a time, get clobbered and they still stay like idiots to try to kick the heroes butt. Why do they stay knowing the fact that they will be beaten within an inch of their lives? And in Jack Reacher's case, why would they stay after getting just one look at this six foot five hulk of a man? Although Jack Reacher is the good guy on the show, in my metaphor, he's a symbol for MLMs. And those men who are trying to finally be the one who wins the battle with him, are the many hopeful who get involved with MLM despite knowing the facts. Those men have most likely been hired to attack Reacher, so giving up means losing money. But at least they know the facts that Reacher will most likely win. That cannot always be said for everyone who gets sucked into the MLM model, including me. If you don't know it already, I was in Amway in the 90s. And I knew none of the facts, but that'll come later.
Melissa Milner 4:41
How did I just recently become focused on MLM education? It started with the pandemic, of course. I started binge watching Leah Remini Scientology Aftermath show on Netflix, and the Going Clear documentary on Hulu, also about Scientology. I was shocked by all of it, especially the tax exempt status and fair gaming of it all. Then my husband and I started to watch a series on Showtime called On Becoming a God in Central Florida. I knew nothing about it going in, other than the fact that Kirsten Dunst was in it. I love her. As we started the first episode, I quickly became very uncomfortable. I had put all these Amway memories somewhere far back in my mind, and this show was pushing them up to the front in a matter of minutes. I kept saying to Josh, this is Amway. Josh, this is Amway. The driving for miles to show the plan, listening to the motivational cassette tapes, the complete contempt for people who worked a regular job, J O. B, just over broke, retiring with the limo. At that time, the discomfort won, and I was not interested in watching the rest of the show. I didn't want to be reminded of those days. FYI, I have since watched the entire season. I loved it. In February 2021, when my husband passed, I didn't watch anything for a while understandably. When I did start watching again, of course I binged The Office multiple times, which Josh and I watched all the time. But I was also strangely drawn to heavy, sad, and very infuriating content about cults and MLMs. The HBO documentary, The Vow, and the Starz documentary Seduced, and the podcast Escaping NIXVM were especially intriguing to me. I thought to myself that if I had encountered the Executive Success Program, after college, I might have been sucked in. I was ignorant of MLMs and cults, and I was very vulnerable at that time in my life. Again, more about that later. So next came Amazon's LuLaRich documentary, and then the Discovery Plus documentary The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe. This led me to multiple podcasts, including Life after MLM. The host of that podcast is Roberta Blevins, and she was in LuLaRich. So, I'm listening to all these anti MLM podcasts and, and I was very lucky to hear over and over again, Robert Fitzpatrick, on almost all of them, sharing his years of research and knowledge. He, by the way, was also in LuLaRich. As I mentioned earlier, Robert is an expert on MLMs and has been on pretty much every documentary or podcasts related to the subject. I especially recommend Season One of the podcasts The Dream in which Robert is featured. But one defining moment for me in this deep dive into cults and MLMs was thanks to Anthony Ames, also known as Nippy on A Little Bit Culty, which is a podcast hosted by Sarah Edmondson and Nippy Ames who are in The Vow. I heard Nippy mention that there needs to be education about cults, and coercive control. This got me thinking about the connection between my deep interest in these topics and my podcast content.
Melissa Milner 8:29
So we're finally here. What is my MLM story? I'll try to be brief since there's no way I can share all of it. In the 1990s, I was 3000 miles away from my family teaching in the High Desert of Palmdale, California with a fiance who refused to keep a job despite his intelligence and potential. I was teaching full time. I think it was my third or fourth year teaching. I was not making much. So I was very intrigued when I heard that a relatively young teacher across the hall was retiring from teaching. I think she was in her mid 30s. She hadn't mentioned anything about it to me, but I heard other teachers talking about it. They said it was a pyramid scheme, and that it was something called Amway. That all meant absolutely nothing to me. I had no idea what they were talking about. I was very vulnerable, obviously wanting to find a way to make the relationship with my fiance work, despite him not keeping a job. I was very young, and very trusting. So I approached her about wanting to get involved with what she was doing. I feel like I was, believe it or not, lucky. And even saying this now I might be totally naive. But my experience with this MLM could have been a lot worse. My direct upline, let's call her Michelle and her husband, were kind and supportive. This was not just the love bombing you hear about at the beginning. They were long-term friendly, and helped me whenever they could. Yes, it benefited them to help me obviously, but they never pressured me into anything I wasn't comfortable doing and in many ways, they saved me money. I didn't have much money to invest past the starter kit. I don't remember the price of the starter kit, I apologize. Michelle always stocked her garage with products since they had a downline and were making money. This way I didn't have to keep an inventory at all. She allowed me to just buy from her and not have to place big orders for myself that I may not be able to sell. I truly believe she was protecting me. She also didn't have a choice, since I didn't have a lot of money to do otherwise. If you want to see what this is like having all these products and waiting for downline to come get them etc., watch On Becoming a God in Central Florida on Showtime, like I mentioned earlier. So Amway distributors, at least in California in the 90s were mostly couples. I was a single female going to homes by myself to show the plan. What was I thinking? Again, I feel lucky that nothing worse happened to me other than failing at the business. I learned how to show the plan by going and watching my upline and their upline show the plan. The tapes were not really for learning. They were fundamentally for motivation. One of the first things that rubbed me the wrong way was actually on a tape. There was a very successful diamond, Jay Cuccia, who had a really fun personality, made it easier to listen to compared to some of them who were really boring. So his tapes really stood out to me. Honestly, I'm kicking myself that I didn't save any of them. I'll never forget, he talked about working all day at his J.O.B., and then driving three hours to show the plan somewhere. Now, knowing more, I can only assume that he was driving three hours, because the area where he lived was saturated. But I didn't understand that back then. Driving three hours to show the plan and then driving three hours back. He talked about rolling down the window in winter just to stay awake. But he was pumped up. He was excited. He would drive by neighborhoods and see the blue light of the TV as if that was evil. He's doing his work and making it happen. He's being a go getter. And you know, look at those slobs and those lazy people at home watching TV. That was the first time that I went, "Hmm. What's wrong with being home with your family and watching TV with them after a long day at work?" That really stood out to me and started me thinking, why am I doing this?
Melissa Milner 12:25
It wasn't working. The biggest red flags though...the cognitive dissonance moments for me, were at the conferences. You had to pay for admission to the conferences, and you had to pay for the hotel and gas to get there, et cetera. Sometimes it was four or five hours to wherever the conference was from where we were in Southern California. I didn't want to travel all that way alone. So we traveled together. And that was really fun. These conferences lasted an entire weekend. And on Sunday morning, they would have a quote "nondenominational service." Now, I'm Jewish. Reminder, I was very young and very naive. So I thought nondenominational would mean it's just going to be kind of spiritual. However, it was a full on service, full on coming up to accept Jesus in your life kind of thing. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. My ex fiance was Irish Catholic, and I had gone to church with him a couple times. I found it interesting. And I liked learning about different religions. But I was at an Amway conference. So it really rubbed me the wrong way. And I couldn't even say why. I told Michelle that it was making me uncomfortable and she said that it was completely optional. That I didn't have to go. But everyone else was going. It was fear of missing out that kept me going conference after conference. I once asked Michelle naively, if they had a Jewish service. Oh, man, I can't believe I even thought to ask that. So yeah, pretty funny. I wasn't religious anyway, so I should have just skipped them. FOMO is real. So later of course, I find out that Amway is a very religious company. Very religious background, so yeah, very clueless. Again, it just wasn't working for me. I don't remember what happened but it ended up I just knew it wasn't gonna work. I couldn't get downline and of course, luckily my direct upline never made me feel bad about it. And their upline never made me feel bad about it. But I felt bad about it for quite some time. Because hey, it works if you work it. So I guess I didn't work it even though I was teaching full time and two to three nights a week I was going out to show the plan. But people didn't want to do it. They knew it was a pyramid scheme. Or they didn't feel they had the money to do it. I was not comfortable pressuring them. I did not like the whole hard sell thing. So I finally quit. Plain and simple. I really feel I was lucky in comparison to many who get involved in MLMs. Now, I know it was set up for me to fail as Roberta Blevins often says that it wasn't really my fault that I failed.
Melissa Milner 15:21
So, back to present times, I recently interviewed an educator named Sarah, who is also anti MLM. In episode 61, I'm going to be sharing clips from our chat. She really got me thinking. She had great insights related to the issue of normalizing these MLMs and that it's dangerous to do so. For instance, in our chat, she mentioned teachers who were selling their MLM products in school to other teachers. That shouldn't be normalized. So the discussion with Sarah reminded me of my early memory of MLMs. My mom sold Avon for years while she was home raising my brother and me. I would go with her to deliver the makeup. It was a pleasant experience, and people were excited to get the next catalog. I also had a Mary Kay distributor at my 13th birthday party doing makeovers on me and my friends. There was nothing negative or insidious about these interactions. This just really gets me thinking it was very much normalized, probably for my mom and for me. It just seemed like what to do if you're a mom staying at home. Adults, especially parents, should be able to get more information about MLMs if they're open to it.
(Zooming In Soundbite)
Melissa Milner 16:39
So to wrap up this episode, I want to zoom in on Steven Hassan's BITE Model of Authoritarian Control. BITE is an acronym. The B is for behavior control. The I is for information control. The T is for thought control, and the E is for emotional control. Steven Hasson, you may have seen him on Leah Remini, Scientology The Aftermath. He's also on numerous podcasts like Robert. I pulled from the BITE model, any aspects that aligned with my experience in MLM. So here are my MLM red flags that I completely had no clue about. So in the behavior control part of the BITE model, the one that stood out for me was discourage individualism and encourage group think. This was really mostly prevalent at the conferences. In the information control section, deception, absolutely. And propaganda more than I'm probably aware of. In the thought control section, this is where I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...5 bullets. This is really where my experience was a little culty. Group's doctrine as truth. So example, black and white thinking and us versus them. 100%. Here's another one from thought control. Use of loaded language/ cliches that stop critical thought and reduce complexities into platitudes and buzzwords. Whenever I did have something to maybe complain about, "It'll work if you work it. It'll work if you work it." I heard that over and over again. Stay positive is the next one. Toxic positivity, stopping negative thoughts and only positive thoughts accepted... unbelievably prevalent in the MLM that I was in. Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking or constructive criticism. Absolutely. And forbid critical questions. Often, I was just sort of like rerouted when I had a question. It never really was answered very well. And I think that's because they didn't have an answer. And then I move on to the emotional control. And there was really only one biggie for me. And this is the one that I've talked about already, in the episode, make the person feel that problems are always their own fault. Never the leader or the group's fault, or the business model, right, the business model's fault. In my opinion, the MLM I was in had way too many connections to authoritarian control. And that was my experience with a pleasant upline who didn't apply much pressure. I can't imagine how much worse some people have it with pushy hun bot uplines. Why am I learning all this in my 50s? Robert Fitzpatrick and I are excited to start our podcast to educate whoever will listen. There's more information to come about that new chapter in my podcasting life. I hope everyone will educate themselves about MLMs and cults. Make sure to check out my next episode which is part three of my MLM series, episode 61. I'll chat with two educators who are doing anti MLM work their own way. It's very inspiring. Thanks for listening.
Melissa Milner 20:19
For my blog, transcripts of this episode, and links to any resources mentioned, visit my website at www.theteacheras.com. You can reach me on Twitter and Instagram @melissabmilner and I hope you check out The Teacher As... Facebook page for episode updates. Thanks for listening. And that's a wrap.