A recent comment left by an anonymous site visitor:
"I love Amway. I just don't understand why people have to be negative about it. I don't hurt or steal from anyone yet I make money. I'm not a millionaire as of yet but working towards that goal. It's called "millionaire mentality". Joecool you will never succeed with penny mentality."
Joecool's commenttary:
Most diamonds do not have a millionaire mentality. If you see how they spend money and how they flaunt excessive wealth, I see people who could win the powerball lottery and wind up broke. They might earn a nice income (even if it may come by lying and deceiving), but they spend it all, and possibly more by portraying the diamond lifestyle. In my opinion, the diamond lifestyle as portrayed in functions such as "dream night" are not sustainable. For this reason, we are now seeing evidence of this such as we saw a triple diamond in bankruptcy proceedings, diamonds losing homes to foreclosures. We are seeing diamonds selling their mansions. Sure, they might be downsizing or liquidating their assests, but if these homes have been paid in cash as they claim, why sell them in a bad real estate market? Why not wait a few years?
In the past, I have posted some articles showing the traits and characteristics of millionaires. Many of these articles cite saving, investing, and living below your means. Many wealthy people drive regular everyday cars and live in the suburbs. They don't commonly have porsches, and jaguars. And for the record, the average diamond income, as reported by Amway, isn't all that much when you factor in business expenses and taxes. So why do diamonds try to show off excessive wealth?
I believe diamonds show off excessive wealth because it is a way to attract recruits. Because the Amway opportunity has a high turnover rate, nobody can reasonably "walk away" from their business and have cash rolling in for long. Attrition would eat away your business in a matter of days or weeks. It is why I believe diamonds do not walk away from their businesses, because they can't afford to. The business requires constant attention or it will crumble faster than stale cookies.
Most IBOs are simply fooled into thinking they are developing into having a millionaire mentality. An honest question for IBOs. How do you even know if your upline diamond is a millionaire? Anyone, even a broke guy can wear a nice suit and show off pictures of mansions and sports cars. For that matter, how do you know if your upline diamond is currently qualified as a diamond? Amway doesn't release that information except for new pins. And as far as I know, diamonds don't disclose their business financials. I strongly suspect that the diamond lifestyle is commonly riddled with debt. How else can someone live the way they portray themselves in functions? Do the math and go backwards and you'll see a different picture than what the diamonds are painting.
In my opinion, diamond's displays of excessive wealth and luxury portrays something, but it's not the millionaire mentality.
12 comments:
My sister joined Amway last year and I just recently found out, of course, her and her husband refuse to say they work for Amway because is part of the strategy to lure us in. She can not carry any conv without talking about her "dream future" and how amazing their "business" is doing! She keeps on saying her "coaches" care about her life more than anyone she knows! Joecool, you seem to know a lot about Amway, answer me this:
1 are these uplines genuine? Would they still love you to death and care for your marriage when you quit Amway?
2 how long this brainwash mentality goes for?
3 how much does a "diamond" make?
The word "mentality" is the key to understanding this issue.
All the crap about "human potential" and "expanding awareness" and the rest of the Norman Vincent Peale/Robert Kiyosaki horseshit is based on the idea that you have to CHANGE YOUR WAY OF THINKING before you can get anywhere in life. In other words, you "need a new mentality."
It's basically magical thinking. If you think and dream and obsess about something hard and long enough, these idiots claim, you'll surely achieve it some day.
Amway freaks have bought into this crackpot idea completely. That's why they are so damned hopped up on "motivational" tools, and "functions," and endless "meetings" and "night-owls." For these Amway freaks, it really is important to be "fired up."
One Amway asshole whom I knew used to say "You gotta THINK BIG!!!" He even had a little motto printed on his business card: "Meet You At The Top!" When I asked "The top of what?", he looked at me with pitying contempt.
Psychiatrists call this condition "folie de grandeur," which is a pathological state where the patient has absurdly impractical dreams of his own worth, and of his inevitably triumphant future success.
Having a "Millionaire Mentality" while you're flogging energy bars and lousy soap products, and while you're trying too chat up strangers at Starbucks, is really rather sad.
1. Anonymous, the diamonds are genuine as long as you buying the tools and attending the seminars. If you stop, you will become "unteachable" and thus unworthy of their time.
2. This brainwashing can go on for a long long time. I snapped out of it pretty quickly but my former sponsor has been in Amway since 1993 and is still involved.
3. A diamond is just a pin. So you could qualify once and still be making money from the tools and seminars and not so much from Amway. But a qualified diamond might make $250K gross, not including business expenses and taxes. Sometimes more or less, depending on business parameters. But even what seems like a big income isn't much after expenses and taxes. Enough to live a middle class lifestyle without a 9-5 full time job.
Good post. You're right, I used to call this the "tapespeak" mentality. Or the IBOs adopt the silly concepts fed to them by upline without any critical thinking on their own. It gets comical when you see through it.
To Anonymous of May 26, 11:52 AM --
Normally, persons in Amway are urged to break all family ties with anyone who is skeptical about the business. If your sister and her husbands continue to socialize with you, it is certainly because they want to get you hooked.
Don't believe anything she says about "how great" and "how amazing" her business is going. No one who has been in Amway for only a year makes any significant money. She is following her up-line's advice that says "Fake It Till You Make It." This means, in simple language, lie to people about how much moeney you're making.
Yes, IBOs are encouraged t avoid "negative" people. Upline will say they have a "broke" mentality or that you don't need the negative forces in your life. So they'll ask you to avoid close family and friends who aren't "gung ho" about Amway.
And yeah, fake it till you make it is basically lying or embellishing things to make you look more successful than you really are.
How long were you on amway for? Why do keep on writing about it? Its scary how good they make it sound saying best buy, apple and office depot are some of their business partners..
I was in Amway for a year although I didn't "build the business" for a whole year.
I write about it because the scam lying uplines who were present during my time are still there, still teaching deceptive and bad business practices to IBOs. They have never been held accountable.
I write so that unsuspecting IBOs and prospects can see what I experienced and maybe they can avoid the traps I was lured into.
It is essentially a lie when Amway claims that it is "partnering' with Best Buy, Apple, and Office Depot. All those companies are doing is allowing some Amway products to be purchased at their outlets. This no more "partnering" than getting permission to sell hot dogs outside a Park Avenue office building.
If Amway were in fact a serious business, it wouldn't be indulging in these pathetic little lies about how they are connected with big corporations.
Yes, the IBOs like to brag about "partners" but all it is in reality is that IBOs sell products for Best Buy, etc. The "partner" companies don't sell Amway products so why wouldn't companies like Disney or Best Buy allow Amway's 3 million IBOs sell their stuff? What IBOs don't mention is that Amway also partnered with Worldcom (formerly MCI) and Enron at one time.
It's so funny to read all of this truth regarding the good ol SCAMway. My wife and I became associated with the looneys a year ago and after 6 months of all their bullsh!% meetings,functions,night owls,etc. We finally had enough and threw in the towel. They really do a good job at brainwashing. My wife and I were already established in our careers. We were already making more than their "2 year goal of 75k+$/year" but now we found ourselves spending over 1500$ a month on worthless products because our upline pressed the fact that "if we put more $ into our business, we would get more out because your down line will do what you do. Period." Well when we decided to throw in the towel, we had about $3k worth of unused products so our upline was furious when we quit, but even more furious when we took advantage of their oh so appealing "6 month money-back guarantee" when we returned all our unused product,apparently it put our uplines "retirement date" back several years. Amway is a joke and wwdb is even more of a joke
Anon, your story is sadly very common. I'm glad you actually returned all the product but your upline lost some bonus for it. But that's better than you eating the losses. Good for you in getting out.
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