Making Your Millions?

 I was sponsored into Amway by a good friend back in the 1990's. My friend had gone "direct" at the time so he recruited me by saying that going direct was "easy" and that he could easily show me how to do it. I had been recruited by an Amway IBO before and it was not a good experience where I was lied to in order to get me to "see the plan". I was in college and a friend had invited me to a "beer bust". I attended the meeting wearing a T-shirt and jeans only to arrive to see people wearing suits and ties and I was thinking WTH? My friend who invited me assured me that we would down some beer after the meeting. I was mad even though I stayed for the meeting.   That was my first impression of Amway and it wasn't a good one.

A friend and I talked about it but I didn't join and my friend eventually told me that he may not be able to hang out with me in the future because he would be rich and may not have time to hang out with the old gang anymore. I went home a bit mad and spoke to my friend who I came with. We talked about whether money could be made in Amway and decided that the Amway opportunity was likely saturated so we decided not to join.

Fast forward to the 1990's and a friend of mine has gone "direct". I didn't really know exactly what that was but I knew that the term "direct" meant you accomplished a significant level in Amway. I decided to join and see if my friend could deliver on his promise that he could show me how to go direct. I should have taken it as a red flag when I asked him about his Amway income and he told me it was none of my business. But he smoothed that over by assuring me that we would both be "Millionaires" traveling the world together in the future.

I worked really hard and managed to sponsor 12 frontline legs in about 7-8 months and I was climbing the Amway ladder. I was considered a "mover and shaker" so I got exclusive time with the upline Diamond. I even got to attend special meetings and house "plans" with the diamond.

The ironic part of thei story is that I purchased a home in about the year 2000 and I made the purchase for about $300K. My real estate agent also knows my Amway sponsor and contacted him about purchasing a home on Oahu (Hawaii). My former sponsor told the agent that he would only buy a home in cash (Amway/WWDB teaching). Fast forward to 2022 and my $300K home is worth more than one million dollars so my home equity alone nearly makes my net worth well over a million dollars. When you add in my cash savings and investments, I am worth well over a million dollars. Nothing to brag about, especially in this day and age, and it's still not a life of luxury, but my former sponsor from Amway who is a physician is still renting a home and is nowhere close to retiring. I am retire, with enough cash to live comfortably, which includes frequent travel other luxuries.  Covid curtailed some of my travel, but I hope that changes very soon.

While I may not be a diamond living the "diamond" lifestyle you see at functions on a slide show, I suspect that I'll be better off that some. possibly most of the diamonds who live "bonus check to bonus check" trying to portray a lifestyle of "keeping up with the Joneses". Diamonds portray an excessive lifestyle of wealth, but I suspect that many of them cannot truly afford the lifestyle they portray. There have been "factoids" that support my claims. The fact that a triple diamond in WWDB declared chapter 7 bankruptcy (2009) and another diamond had a home foreclosed (around 2009) (diamonds pay cash for everything?) shows that diamonds may not be as financially free as they claim.

So who's making millions in Amway? IMO, the folks selling CDs, voicemail, functions and books, and of course, the folks who own Amway.