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Dignity Thieves We all have dreams. I have heard it said that without a dream we are as good as dead. Of that when our dream dies is when we start giving up on life. I believe in the True Power behind every real dream that a man or a woman can have. I have marveled at the works of people who have been driven by their dream or their vision. I believe a dream can be shared and that if it is clear enough that it can even instill hope or can flat out inspire others. I have seen these things in my life. I still cry at 40 years old when I hear Dr Martin Luther King transmit his dream to me through a speech I have heard dozens of times. I am floored by the power of a dream that brought Great Britain to it's knees in India. I have dreams of my own and I get all juiced up when I hang around people who are actively pursuing a dream. BEING SOLD A DREAM IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MATER! These manufactured dream substitutes are almost always based in hedonistic materialism that repulses most people until a Dream Weaver gets a hook in them. The Dream Weaver effectively lowers the sights of average work a day people and deludes them into thinking that getting their "Fair Share" at the expense of others is a noble and lofty use of one's time on earth and that anyone who stands in their way is for all intents and purposes "evil" or really is jealous and petty and don't want to see you succeed because it would make them look bad. What a bag of shit to dump on some unsuspecting "prospect". As the prospect gets drawn further and further into the illusion they can even see friends and family as enemies who willfully stand in their way of success because they don't "do the business" even though the fledgling MLMer knows they "need it". All the while the sweet talking Dream Weaver is telling the underling MLMer that if he of she wants to go from $30 or $50K a year to $30 or $50K a month that he or she is going to have to make a choice. If all of your friends and associates are broke and struggling to make it from pay check to pay check they will not be able to teach you what you need to know to "make it". The Dream Weaver will tell you that if you want to make $50K a month you need to start hanging around people who do that, and that you will then learn that they act differently, they talk differently, and most importantly they think differently. The Dream Weaver may tell you that if you never get the think differently part you are doomed to a life of blue or white collar toil. With out the thinking it will be no silver platter for you. You are instructed to hang around $50k a month earners as if every upstart MLMer can find twenty or thirty of these folks at their local opportunity meeting or just drive their rust bucket to the local "Good Ol' Boys Club" and grab a few cigars and get in on the real action that goes on in their town. All the values that make up a community and build life long relationships are tossed out the window in exchange for the bottom line of what do you make a month and how little do you have to work to get it. Not how do you contribute to society, but are you at least getting your fair share. As if we are entitled to this materaliastic hoarding fest. I know this part of the business very well. Too well. The result of brainwashing large numbers of people into believing that the traditional MLM model can not only succeed, but is good for the country can be found in the destroyed relationships that trail any failed MLM business where the upstart MLMer "bought into the system" hook line and sinker. I remember a number of years back when I would pick up the phone to call someone and they would say "What is it this time?" and it wasn't with excitement in their voice. I have had otherwise good relationships turn sour over the placement of a mutual friend in a downline somewhere. You would think I was stealing formula out of their infants mouth. These are the clear examples of how hell bent MLMer can wreak havoc on those around him of her. However they are often blind to the more subtle damage. As a fledgling MLMer runs out of friends and family they often turn on the community at large for fresh prospects. I was a master of the "bump into" where you strike up a conversation with someone, listen for a while and then take control of the conversation for the sole purpose of prospecting them for the business. I was very good at it and I held training seminars where I turned out clones. I would prospect anything that moved. Often my first categorization of a person was based on whether or not they were going to buy my products or be open to a presentation on the business. Then I would size them up as a potential friend. I have had people who liked me in spite of the things i am telling yo about myself and would buy into my deal to get my attention. This process is not unique to me. Often times friends and family members who love us will buy into our misguided belief and trust us. They want to support us so they buy the Fast Start kits and they go on auto-ship for stuff they would otherwise not buy. Then we put the business pressure on them, we pump them for names and start using our personal network of friends and family to build our empire. Problem is most MLMs fail, but even if they didn't people know when they are being exploited and they don't like it. The difference between the startup MLMer and the people he or she is trying to convince to get into the business is that the prospect can tell they are being exploited because at best the upstart MLMer is a Spell Caster. The new MLMer doesn't yet know they too are being exploited. When an aggressive MLM hits your church all holly hell can break loose. <sorry couldn't resist> Then , God forbid, that there are people from two different downlines who just got started at about the same time in an opportunity. Battle lines will be drawn so fast it would make your head spin. Is the pastor in or out? Who's on my side? who is competition. Suddenly people you were delivering food baskets with last week have turned into profit centers. The same thing happens in civic groups, health clubs, work places, PTA meetings, you name it. If there are prospects there... er... I mean... If there are people there it is open season on recruitment. If there is an offending ad on TV someone can hit the remote, same for the radio. You can hang up on a telemarketer in about 6 seconds or less. You don't even have to open junk mail. When we become junk mail to our friends and families and with or without knowing it impose on our emotional bonds and relationships people are left feeling victimized by those of us who mention the products or opportunity more than once. When those around us either cave into our tactics or the manipulation of our sleazy neighborhood Dream Weaver, or simply choose to participate out of a sense of desire to see us succeed and the MLM opportunity goes belly up, like most do, then we really have a problem. This is where we loose our dignity. No amount of money can repair this. Often when we as MLMers are trying to build a business we put our emotional hooks into our friends and family. They in turn bring more lambs to slaughter, I mean prospects for the business. When the thing flops not only do our friends and family feel that we have ripped them off, but we have made them look bad in front of their peers. The Dream Weaver will milk you for every penny he or she can with no concern for your personal relationships or the fact that you are going to have to go back to church where you have gone for the last decade after the crash. If you feel like you are poor or not rich enough and you are looking to MLM to fix that I would warn you that you may end up emotionally bankrupt in your community after the storm and find yourself longing for the days before that opportunity of a lifetime came along.
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