Seeing as how I don't have anything else to add from my posts last year I'm recycling another one for any new readers that might have missed this post.
And of course I love the keywords. For whatever reason - top secret! - Amway and World Wide Dreambuilders makes it extremely difficult for IBOs to find the information they're seeking about Amway functions. They search on the Internet and find the information they need on blogs like mine. Nothing like finding out what you're getting yourself into. Another brainwashing session!
What actually happens at Free Enterprise Days?
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?
HA HA i remember all this stuff. Let me confirm that for the "serious business builder" you not only arrived there early (say 4 - 6 am) you actually found some ambots who beat you there, how? they slept on the line after last night's function! and BTW they have paid for an expensive hotel room!
ReplyDeleteWoe unto a new ambot. FED was put on with much grandeur and pomposity (as you would say). the diamonds on stage would keep promoting saturday night, it will be a life changing event (that's when new diamonds are paraded on stage). how it will be a mirror of where ambots will be in 5 years. on the floor before, during and after the friday show the lying to the new ambots continue. they would be told things like "this is your first function, waoh i envy you! i had to wait for close to a year before i could come to an FED! you are in for quite a treat! and for "older" ambots whose FED is their first function they would be told FED does not compare to any other function they have been to before that. don't forget all this promotion usually starts as soon as the last major function ends. so a poor ambot would have been hearing about the function for so long it's been worked into their brain real good (cultic brainwashing of course).
Every day had it's way of being promoted. saturday morning was the preparation for the night event, etc. and then saturday night. you are told to imagine yourself on that stage in 2-5 years. oh la di da! and you will never worry about money in your life ever again, what with all the residual income coming your way.
The funniest part now looking back was when there was no new diamonds as it happened a couple of times with BWW. but leave it to cult leaders to use words on ambots and still put on a cultic show!
Anywho sunday morning almost everyone was all pious and attends the service. it's sold as i came to a business meeting but my life changed and i found christ, my marriage was saved, it's a business but it's even more than that, it's a way of life (now looking back isnt that cult admission?), etc etc.
Then there's still the afternoon session. this is where now everything will be tied together, amongst other crap. in reality this is the first time anything is taught about building the business - last day, last session. Prior to this the focus is emotional. in fact from stage on friday and saturday, they talk about having an emotional reason to build it. that the technics are important but not as the reason to build it and that it takes a short time to cover the technics and that's done on sunday but ambots first need to focus on their emotional reason. cult leaders talk about saturday night is when they "saw it and the business went from head to heart." it was it sounds noble and all innocent. but it's classic cult preying on emotion! once they got an ambot emotionally they got one don't they.
The back drop of all this is that somebody has raked in big bucks. a diamond collects $60 for every ticket sold in his/her pyramid, as well as from the hotel rooms. to me that's what FED and any other function is all about. a way to continue provide income to diamonds by hooking in new ambots and and getting the rest to continue staying in for as long as is possible.
Wow! ExAmbot - thank you for such a great breakdown of FED.
ReplyDeleteSure beats me saying one boring Ken and Barbie after the other saying the same thing: "we were going nowhere in life then a dear friend of our showed us the business plan and now we live in a mansion and travel the world and money keeps rolling in!"
These brainwashed ambots slept in front of the arena waiting for the doors to open!? Holy shit! Its not like its Black Friday at Macys! I have no idea what time the ambots started lining up. All I know is we got there an hour early and there'd be a few hundred people standing in line in front of the arena's doors.
Agreed. The idea of lining up for hours (or even all night) is absolutely re-donk-ulous.
ReplyDeleteAs if grown men and women don't have better things to do than waste their lives for hours at a time waiting to hear these people deliver their message of salvation.
What a crock of shit.
Rocket - I always had better things to do. Like scouting out the above mentioned milkshakes! Or reading my book. I didn't stick in my seat for any period of time but whenever I got back Ambot would still be sitting in the same spot holding on to his tape recorder and writing down notes.
ReplyDelete@AnnaB
ReplyDeleteno it doesn't beat what you said. it's just in the spirit of exposing. i know some ambot struggling to quit will see this topic and comments and it will ring a bell, and perhaps make it easier to extricate themselves from the shackles of these cult AMOs.
i remember when i was at that point and i stumbled here you provided a forum that has been quite healing for me, as i'm sure many others. i just love to read and comment on the topics you explore. thus, today i really felt like letting it all out. i lived this for 7 years, never missing a function.
but i have to say i LOL about your ventures outside of the venue. should i say i used to see you. you never quite bought into it. i would never understand "what else is out there for you, you need to get excited about this and absorb it all. but no you didn't listen" and i am glad you did not. can you imagine that was somebody who refused to let the cult into their homes and mess them.
you know what is so telling about the ambots who slept at the door (with hotel blankets) i never saw any one as a diamond on stage (it's supposed to be 2-5 years right). in fact hardly did i see any one of them make it to any significant level. actually most eventually quit. every function i remember wondering about some ambot who was gung ho in the last. well of course they had quit, good for them. much more occurred but i will of load that in time.
@ Rocket
ReplyDeleteambots laugh at those early black friday shoppers, or people who line up for days to buy the tickets to some movie or season ticket holders for some team. while i just don't get all this lining up for me, as an ambot we would find words to justify us lining up just the same. stupid and ridiculous.
ExAmbot - writing is healing and we can only help others if we share what has happened to us.
ReplyDeleteI hope others read your comments and see themselves and realize that no matter how many years they put in and how much money they spend their chances of success are less than a quarter of one percent. To reach that level of success you have to be a cutthroat weasel who will step all over people, abuse people, and make their money at the expense of people losing their money.
Ah those people with the blankets sleeping in front of the arena waiting for the doors to open the upline would refer to them as "winners"!