Sometimes it happens to the nicest of people and it often happens slowly and subtly. These are the signs that you are becoming indoctrinated and you are likely annoying your friends and loved ones at this point. I hope this helps you. But seriously, the Amway IBOs begin to believe anything upline tells them and they begin to act out what they are taught and are in danger of becoming Amway zombies. Here are some warning signs:
*You're driven to recruit everyone you know. You may even resort to deception or outright lies to get people to meetings. Before you know it, your family and friends avoid you like the plague. You end up spending time at malls and other public places such as Starbucks desperately stalking and scouting for recruits. Much of your time is spent doing this activity when you're not getting more brainwashed at rah rah meetings.*You're encouraged to develop an unreasonable, irrational zeal for the products. Even so far as to justify the quality of toilet paper or to call the products prestigious. You may even argue the quality of energy drinks or about phytonutrients, something you may not even know about. You even argue about concentration values in dish soap or laundry detergent.
*A whole bunch of demands, promises, subtle threats of failure if you don't try hard enough are made in the promotional material and motivational seminars. i.e. If you quit, you are a loser destined to die broke and unhappy. Or you let someone steal your dream. These ridiculous claims are how your upline keeps you hooked. There is constant pressure to never quit and to keep on pimping Amway to recruits.
*Because the system is touted as the way you're going to make yourself fantastically rich, you're under constant pressure to drop any conflicting or competing interests such as your bowling league or golf club. Nothing else in life has importance except for the quest of financial freedom. All activities in your life must enhance your Amway business and have an affect on your financial future. No other activities matter to you unless it affects your dream filled Amway financial future.
*Your upline soon becomes your most trusted friend. Your thoughts and feelings are shaped in part by the cds, meetings and functions.
Do you recognize these behaviors? Hopefully you aren't displaying these behaviors.
I was harrassed in college in the early 1990s by an Amway person. She got mad when I told her no and told me college was a waste of money. I asked why she was attending the same college and radio silence. Our relationship was never the same. Then, my 55 year old dad at the time in the late 1990s was sucked into Amway. He invited the entire family to come across country to visit over Christmas on false pretenses and would only talk about and do Anyway things while we visited. Then, in late 2018, a guy convinced me to meet with him to discuss a business investment opportunity which he swore up and down was NOT Amway (it was).
ReplyDeleteThe brainwashing that happens in all MLMs (not just Amway) is truly frightening. I have watched sane persons morph into fanatical propaganda machines, and I have heard impassioned defenses of this new attitude from others in the racket.
ReplyDeleteIt's the triumph of mindless dreaming over rational thought. The hunger to hope and believe is so strong in some people that even those who fail miserably in Amway are still passionately devoted to the whole idea, and will not tolerate any criticism of it.
Anybody with a functioning brain who sat down with a sheet of paper and a pencil, and who took the time to figure out the expenses and income of a single month in Amway, would realize in ten minutes that the whole thing is a fantasy-driven pipedream.