You know, most of its a blur. The only thing I remember for sure was being bored to death. It seems to me the exact same thing goes on at FED as what happens at Family Reunion. On Friday night its a bunch of rah, rah, rah. A lot of patriotism, loud music, and speeches about what a great weekend its going to be. If it wasn’t part of Amway, that Friday night special would have almost been kind of fun.
Saturday everyone arrives at the auditorium - early of course. Remember if you’re a “serious business builder” you have to be there at least an hour early. There were huge line ups - the venue had several doors - and its my guess some of these cult followers had been lining up for hours. Gee the building looked pretty big to me. Scared you weren’t going to find a seat?
FED was mostly Diamonds and I think a few Emeralds who told their stories in such a manner as to motivate IBO’s to stay with “the business”. They’d all been down on their luck, found Amway, and built “the business”. Now their life is fantastic. Mansions, luxury cars, exotic vacations, blah, blah, blah. One by one they trooped across the stage and said the same thing. Nothing useful to anyone who is actually trying to build an Amway business. Or maybe the helpful stuff happened when I was out of the building. I get hungry and thirsty and would head out and scout the nearby eating places.
And darned if I didn’t find a restaurant I liked a few blocks away. It had a sign out front saying it was serving up caramel apple milkshakes I guess due to proximity to Halloween. That milkshake was the only thing I liked about FED. I bought a snack for Ambot too and brought it back to the auditorium where he was dutifully taking notes even though the speakers were all saying the same thing as the last ones. Boring, boring, boring.
Sunday morning there is an all denomination church service - all the better for brainwashing the followers. Fortunately Ambot was tired from the previous evening’s night owl so we slept in. Sunday afternoon drones on with the Diamonds boring the audience. They say the exact same things - basically how wonderful their lives are now after all the troubles they endured in the past. Amway brought them riches, saved their marriages, and turned them all into Ken and Barbie dolls. Boring as hell. I finally leave and go out to the car and read a book.
So in answer to the question about what happens at Free Enterprise Days, to sum it up - a bunch of IBO’s get ripped off by spending money listening to boring speakers. It won’t help your business but will lighten your wallet.
And increase the bank accounts of those boring speakers who marched across the stage all blending together as one entity. How do you tell any of them apart anyway?
Only if you actually had what they have... all you have instead is why you were/are and WILL be bored to death. You need psychiatric counseling lady.
ReplyDeleteWhat i hated the most was the price tag of the FED. You then get the diamond or whatever saying they make nothing or very little from FED
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - that is just Amway speak that you have learned from your upline. I've heard similar phrases many times from our Platinum cult leader anytime someone isn't interested in Amway:
ReplyDelete"There's something wrong with them."
"There's something wrong with their relationship."
"They need counselling."
My life is far from boring. So far this year I`ve walked on beaches in Mexico, Aruba, and Costa Rica. I've been to other countries too, not so good beaches. How`s your tally for walking the beaches of the world this year?
Just how are the beaches in Scarborough Canada anyway? I bet a lot colder than the countries I travelled to!
PS - I hope you get the counselling you need for being brainwashed by this cult.
Colin, I don't remember the price tag for FED. I'm thinking it was around $200 each? I'm not sure how the Diamonds split up the profits after the venue has been paid. Probably a lot of backstage fighting on that one!
ReplyDeleteI believe the IBOs wrote the names of their upline diamonds on the tickets and that's how they split the ticket income. What's scary is that some arenas would be cheap or free if the IBO convention filled the arena and the nearby hotels.
ReplyDeleteI guess the anon from Scarborough Canada made an ass out of himself on my blog so now he's doing it here?
Hey anon, the law enforcement authorities haven't shut down my blog yet. You must be a miserable failure at defending your cause.
Anon from Scarborough spent about half an hour just looking at this one post! Maybe his FED is coming up and he wants to know what to expect!
ReplyDeleteHey Anna, I remember FED oh so well, what a waste of time and money. Ours was in Richmond Virginia and was equally as boring. Diamonds after Diamonds flaunting their apparent riches and supposed financial freedom to the crowd of brainwashed IBOs. It was basically the same story with slight variations about how they were broke and now they have everything they ever dreamed of and will never have to work again. We all know how much of a lie that is. They make their money selling tools and functions like FED to IBOs. If you stood back and analysed FED it is just mind control. The pictures of cars, mansions and beaches and the "happy couples" on stage are all meant to brainwash and keep as many people buying tools and attending functions as possible. It took me a while to wake up and leave this cult but in hindsight FED should have been a huge warning sign.
ReplyDeleteWhat if one were to show up as a guest at one of these seminars- with open eyes? Not with judgement and disapproval; Not as a sheep depending on every word spoken.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who can see it for what it is and what they do. Look at the facts AND all the peoples emotions, both caught up as well as skeptics.
1.Don't listen to everything one person has to tell you. Use outside wisdom to reaffirm your possibilities and disregard the emotion in context.
2.Investments are risky; Job security is obsolete. Change your mindset to fit the times.
3.Practice what you preach. Most people preaching their negative ideals on 'investments and making a lot of money'- ARE BROKE.
Look at it this way: A Rich investor wants to create a business to teach people how to invest in his business. No emotion, no whooplah or excitement. Generic statement and everything talked about this business-[WWDB] (for those who get their affiliates confused) makes that statement evident in this company. Many who see it as a scam or those who depend their life on the company- haven't listened to a financial Adviser giving them options with cause and effect.
There's good and bad people parts of good and bad business. All this attributes to: it its what you make it.
In My Own Words - we did bring a guest a wonderful open generous woman who's an absolutely wonderful nonjudgemental human being to a seminar and she walked out halfway through it. She couldn't put up with the bullshit from the speaker, the unnatural adoration of the audience, and how nicey nice everyone was.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about so much you say. People should use outside wisdom and the opinions of many others when it comes to making some decisions such as starting a business.
Investments may be risky but people need to take a chance to grow their assets. Everyone has different tolerance levels on risk taker or play it safer. Although job security may be a thing of the past in many occupations it is not obsolete. Particularly people who are emergency responders will have a job for life if they don't do anything stupid.
Absolutely agree with you that people preaching their negative ideals are broke. This applied to just about everyone in my upline who were the most negative people around and all lied about how much money they were making and diversifying their investments when they had none.
Good and bad people in every business. I saw the worst of it this last time round in Amway. I know there are people out there who had people in their upline who were good to them but that wasn't my experience. We had an abusive upline who truly were cult leaders who expected 100% submission from their followers and expected to always be adored.
Thanks for stopping by!