S3 E3: The MLM-to-coaching pipeline

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Pushkin.

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Previously on The Dream.

What do you think her intention was there?

Just to see who was going to do what she wanted them to do.

If she really, truly were a leader that cared about her people, she would have known that this person had diabetes.

She would have set them up for success and said, These are the parameters for this trip.

If you're not in a place where you can, you know, meet these, then maybe don't come on this one.

You know, a leader is going to set these people up for success, not break them down so that you can manipulate them more to sell more MLM products.

Hey, you need to help you carry anything.

I didn't know what you had.

No, just this.

Oh, I feel like I know you already.

Thank you so much.

So much.

Thank you for having me.

This is great.

You know, this town is like exactly like where I'm going.

I know.

It's like, I,

once you said like all the stuff you were into, I'm like, she's totally gonna like, she's gonna like totally be at home here.

I'm in Crystal Falls, Michigan.

And if you've ever heard of Crystal Falls, Michigan, no, you haven't.

Quit lying.

This is a town of 1,500 people, best known for its annual humongous fungus festival, celebrating a 91-acre, 880,000-pound, 2,500-year-old, mostly subterranean mushroom who lives here.

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Congrats, guys, you did it.

If you're into mushrooms, the delicious kind, not the like, ooh, I understand the universe now kind, stay tuned.

They have a teeny tiny bit part later in our story.

I'm here because, okay, so when you host a podcast or write articles or books about scams like we did in the first couple of seasons, the algorithm, you know, the part of the internet that feeds you all the stuff it thinks you want, even though you don't, that algorithm slowly becomes obsessed by scams, just scam content constantly.

Almost all of my pre-roll ads on YouTube are some 25-year-old guy or girl filming themselves while driving an embarrassing try-hard car and telling me about how I can develop a program to be a millionaire just like them.

All I have to do is buy this course in affiliate marketing or whatever.

It's just,

anyways, thankfully the skip ad button comes up right before I punch the computer.

Though mostly I get anti-scam stuff.

So one day the machines handed me this TikTok video.

Hi, I'm Jennifer and welcome to my series, Cult or Coaching.

I hope this helps you identify whether you are being mind-controlled and manipulated or legitimately coached.

This series is going to be filled with questions that you can ask yourself to determine whether you've invested in real personal development or something that's presenting as personal development, but is really attempting to control and manipulate you.

This video was uploaded by a woman named Jennifer over a year ago, and it only has 58 likes, which is nothing in TikTok land.

So it's kind of a miracle it found me.

If I believed in manifesting my best life, I'd think that was the universe giving me a sign that I needed to wake up at 4 a.m.

one Saturday and drive to LAX, and then fly to Detroit, and then have a cony dog at the airport in Detroit, or two cony dogs at the airport in Detroit, who's counting.

And then get one of those toy planes to Marquette, Michigan, and then get in a rental car and drive an hour and a half through the Upper Peninsula all the way to Crystal Falls to meet this lady Jennifer because she took a surprisingly common path to becoming a career coach.

One that I barely realized existed before this year, but it's the same path Jesse Lee Ward took and many other successful coaches.

The difference is that Jennifer wishes things had gone differently.

She's questioning those choices, which is a rarity in the sometimes holier than thou world of people who feel qualified to tell you how to live.

I was dying to sit down with her.

But first I had to check into my motel, the Bigfoot Hideaway.

All right, I'm pulling, I'm arriving

at

the

Bigfoot, the Bigfoot Hideaway.

All right.

Here I go.

Hello.

Hello.

You must be Jane.

I am Jane.

I'm here for Doris.

I'm Doris.

Hi, Doris.

This is so nice to meet you.

I'm so excited you're coming.

The Upper Peninsula, in case you don't, not in case you don't know.

I talked to so many people about the Upper Peninsula while I was traveling and they're like, the what?

It's the part of Michigan that's like Canada and Wisconsin, but it's not the hand, the mitten part.

It's above that.

Anyway, there's this part of Michigan that is

just different.

And there's nothing there.

I mean, it's beautiful, but there's nothing there.

So the Upper Peninsula is the part of Michigan that's Canada and Wisconsin combined, which is how come my accent will be more annoying than ever today.

I'm just, I'm just documenting myself.

It's fine with me.

And we'll be advertising the motel.

Oh, you can advertise the motel.

Bigfoot Hideaway Motel and gift shop.

Friendliest place to stay.

Nice and comfy, like coming to grandma's.

Sit out here, chill, and have a fire, maybe with some more.

Yeah, and it's all good.

Tonight.

Oh,

Bigfoot fidget thing.

I got to get that for my daughter before I go to shop.

She's nine.

Anyways, we'll do that tomorrow.

There's a sheet like this in your room, has a Wi-Fi password, a list of all the yummy restaurants in the area.

Coffee starts in here at six.

If you need it earlier, just let me know.

No.

All right, then.

Here's your key.

Yes, and there's your wallet.

You have a wonderful night in the middle of the morning and all we live here, so give us a holler.

Thank you, Doris.

Thank you.

Bye, everybody.

Bye.

Turns out, Jennifer, the woman I'm visiting, lives right around the corner from the Bigfoot Hideaway.

Because, like I said, there's nothing here.

It's just the motel and Jennifer's house.

I'm kidding.

There's a couple other houses in between.

My name is Jennifer Ryla.

And I was an Arbonne

consultant for eight years.

I promoted to, I don't, you know, I don't like to say promoted, but I promoted to, I got to the level where you earn the Mercedes and then

very quickly was sucked through the pipeline of a coaching

cult.

Jennifer is 37 years old and looks a lot like, and I'm sorry, but she looks a lot like Gwyneth Paltrow.

But that's where the similarities stop.

She's a mom with three kids and one husband.

And until about a year ago, she was deeply involved with an MLM called Arbonne.

They sell makeup and diet shakes just like all the other ones.

Her parents moved to this area when she was a kid to run a laundromat and a car wash.

She went away to college at Michigan State to study social work and criminal justice and eventually moved back up north for a job with the Department of Child and Family Services when she was in her 20s.

My social work job at the time

was very exhausting.

I mean, I was falling asleep in the chair, like reading to my kids every night because I was dealing with an infant death case, which was like a huge deal in my small little town.

It's not, it wasn't common.

Thankfully, it's not a common occurrence, but I was a fairly, I was fairly new

and I had been thrown into this case that got publicity for our little area.

And I felt a lot of pressure.

And then being pregnant on top of it, I felt a lot of emotional attachment to this case as much as I tried not to.

And so the thought of like maybe

perhaps one day not having to work a job like this that was so taxing

gave me this like little glimmer of hope.

I'll give you the short version of what happened in that infant death case.

What made Jennifer want to leave her job and start selling makeup to her friends instead?

A three-month-old baby girl was dropped off at her sitter's house along with her toddler brother and the sitter's toddler son.

The sitter goes outside to take the trash out and have a cigarette, comes back, and the baby has a head injury, later found to be similar to shaken baby syndrome.

She dies three days later, and the sitter is charged but acquitted of murder.

And Jennifer was the social worker on this case.

So that's what she was doing about 10 years ago.

Those were her days and her nights while she's becoming a mom herself.

When I was recruited into Arbonne,

and this is the first time I've said recruited, because sometimes they say, oh, when I started my Arbonne business.

And so when I was recruited into Arbonne, I was, I had just found out I was pregnant with our second baby.

So I had like a lot of questions like reeling around, like, how am I going to be able to do this job with two kids i could i feel like i'm barely staying afloat with one so when a friend from college had reached out to me

i thought this seems doable this seems like something flexible that i could do from home either on maternity leave or as a little side hustle

and potentially it could become something more because i had interest in

wellness

and taking care of myself and my family.

And, you know, there were some some aspects, like the environment, and there were aspects of it that really appealed to like what I was looking for.

I wasn't really like a

makeup and skincare person.

And so actually when I tried the products, because she sent me a sample and I used them on my face and I had never used like high quality skincare before, I was like, wow, this feels amazing.

And on top of that, I was working so much and I was a mom.

I had a two-year-old that was pregnant.

Like just taking that time for myself felt so good.

People get into social work, teaching, nursing, a lot of jobs.

I mean, journalism, because you like, you want to help, you want to help people.

Like every, a lot of people have an inherent need to want to be of use.

And

I thought this was just another way that I could do that.

And in fact, on a larger scale, that was another thing that was sold to me was,

great, you're helping people in your small little town.

That's amazing.

But what if, like, you're only doing social work in this small little area?

Like, think about Arbonne as doing social work globally.

You're pointing people to tools just like you do in social work.

Instead of the tools being,

you know, a mental health resource or a medical resource or something like that, it's

a skin guy.

It's so funny to say.

It's a skincare or 30 days to healthy living package, which I'm like, yeah, that could be helpful for people.

Of course.

People want great skin.

They want to be healthy.

And

before I knew it, I'm looking at business packages.

And I really, truly saw myself doing it.

I thought, like, how hard could it be?

In the dream world and in Michigan, apparently, all roads lead back to multi-level marketing.

We're just going to hang out in this part of her story for a bit so that you understand how Jennifer went from a losing proposition working with an MLM to a hopefully winning one in coaching.

So Jennifer signs up to sell makeup and stuff under her college friend.

And one of the first things she's asked to do after buying a huge starter pack for something like $500, she thinks, her friend scheduled a meeting.

And she was like, would you be open to getting on what is called a third-party validation call, which is just a call with someone who has been in the business longer than she has.

This woman was a former Wall Street executive.

She

worked on Wall Street and decided to build this amazing skincare and wellness company because she had two kids.

Wait, is she the owner of Arbonne?

No.

So where did she working on?

It's just a street that's called Wall Street.

No.

Like, what?

I've never had anyone ask me that before, and I've never thought about it.

And thanks for asking that.

Like, I've never actually

thought about that.

There's every

day there are new things that just get unlocked that I'm like, oh my gosh.

Well, anyway, so she gets on and I think she's got this.

financial and like this business acumen that little old me, this little social worker, like who's about to have a second child, like I couldn't possibly know more than her.

And that's how it's framed.

That's the point.

There's something called edification, which isn't even the right way to use that word, but it's used, it's manipulated in multi-level marketing to say we edify the leaders and our mentors.

And that's what was, what it really is, is deification.

It's like.

placing them on this pedestal.

That's what was done about her.

So she is this

higher up who is taking the time to speak to little old me.

You would be so great at this.

Obviously, the love bombing began right away.

Oh my gosh, you're in social work.

Oh, you have two kids.

I have two kids too.

Well,

so-and-so, the person who invited me on the call says you're just amazing.

You're so much fun.

You're a great speaker.

You love to help people.

All these little things that really felt good because I'm working in state government.

I don't get a lot of recognition.

I'm working an emotionally exhausting job.

And to have, I felt really seen.

I felt really seen.

I felt like, you know, my, my work ethic.

Yeah, I could, I could probably do this because I'm a hard worker and I love people.

The next thing Jennifer was asked to do is something called Arbonizing Her Home, replacing items in her home with the Arbonne brand.

Stuff like toothpaste and lotion and all of her makeup.

Arbonne everywhere.

And it wasn't cheap.

Their products, there are 221 of them, are about as expensive as stuff you'd buy in a nice salon, not Walmart.

What was said to me, again, the manipulation, was you have a baby.

Do you know how many toxins are in all of the products that you're probably putting on yourself and your family?

And then you're given like this ingredient list with all these toxins.

Look at all this stuff Arbonne avoids.

They've even trademarked the not allowed list.

And it is just a list of this is linked to ADHD.

This is linked to, you know, diabetes and cancer.

And like, what would you do with yourself if, you know, you knew this information and you didn't do anything about it.

I found myself buying things that I didn't even really use

and I was like, well I don't use this.

I remember saying this, like, well, I don't actually use

some sort of makeup or something, right?

And it's like, but you need to use it so that you can sell it.

And I'm like, okay, and

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Told,

follow the people before you.

Jennifer didn't see it at the time, but much of what motivated her throughout her time with Arbonne, most of it was the language, the sayings, sayings, the mantras, the love bombing.

It wasn't money.

It was about mindset and loyalty.

So she did follow the people before her and she started moving up the ladder by recruiting others by saying exactly what was said to her.

And I thought this is only going to continue to grow.

Like, look at what I've done

alongside of this very stressful social work job.

Imagine what I'll be able to do if I could do this full time.

And so, like, I go on maternity leave and I end up not going back

because I had recruited like a handful of people at this point.

Not going back to work

seemed like, why wouldn't I do this?

Also,

there's so much momentum.

I don't even, I don't even like to use that word.

How come?

There's so, because it just gets so messed with in, because momentum in multi-level marketing means you're in, like you're growing.

And it means like there's so much happening in your business that you just can't keep up.

And you're, and so like when I think about momentum, I think about it as positive, but actually, that's not the right word I want to use.

It was more, it was so

confusing and busy that I didn't have time to think.

And in my mind, it felt good though.

So I, when I say that, it's not like I'm like, oh my God, I'm so exhausted.

Like, it's just like, like, stuff's happening, moving, shaking, like, but you don't have time to think.

So, so these are, these are some of like my first notebooks when I started Arbonne.

And like, so you can see this training, seven steps to becoming a recruiting machine.

But it doesn't actually tell you how to recruit people.

So this is funny funny because it's like step one, like make a decision.

Step one doesn't even say make a decision.

It says one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Step one, decision.

Step two, mindset.

And don't be apologetic about network marketing.

They assume people will be negative about it.

Number step three, collect friends.

Like it's just

what?

But you have to collect them before they become long before they become become prospects because you are, everybody is a prospect.

Oh, collect, get them, and then don't talk to them about Arvon.

You have to, you call it, it's called dripping.

It is.

It's called dripping.

You drip on them slowly and very insidiously.

Wait.

Like, that's not a real thing.

You'll just, like, so dripping can be anything from like sending them a message on Facebook that's like, you look so pretty.

and then maybe you slip in like

trying a sample but you not all the time but it's like compliments love bombing like that's dripping really is love bombing but it could also be like being at their house and taking out a really smelly like nice smelling um hand cream where they're like oh what is that you know that's like also a drip

company talk about this or this is what you've learned since then when you're getting deprogrammed company.

The company.

Oh, these are trainings.

Like, hold on.

I have to, look at this.

I have to get out this

binder.

This is blowing my mind.

Binder with all like my prospects, like people that I

drip list.

I had a drip list of people.

So like

you have

these were people's names.

When When did I reach out to them?

What do they do for a living?

This is like data mining.

We were like taught to do this.

You collect information, you make notes about them,

and then you can use it to

relate to them.

Somebody that would relate to them, a new mom.

You're taught to do these things.

Also, I'm sorry, but like a driplet.

Like, you know, drip is also a derogatory term for like a ding-dong.

I didn't.

Yeah.

So you're.

Oh, I got you.

Like calling someone a drip is like, they're kind of like

loosey-goosey up top.

Oh, that's so sad.

Does it make you sad?

Oh, it makes me totally sad because I

it makes me like

think

How I really like would have wanted to be friends with those people, but like I manipulated things, but genuinely cared about every single person on that list, you know, so it's weird to wake up and see like how I wasn't acting like myself who I wasn't like Jennifer who would have made a friend.

I was Arbon independent consultant, Jennifer trying to make a friend.

Okay, so this went on for years and Jennifer wasn't really making any money.

She says she was maybe breaking even and often had to borrow money from her husband to prop up her sales.

But as you're building your downline and as their purchases add up, usually just their own personal urbanizing purchases, Jennifer kept moving up the ranks, eventually reaching regional vice president, aka the Mercedes level, just like the Mary Kay Pink Cadillac.

And, you know, you're told that once you get to the Mercedes level, you're going to have this business that will work for you.

And you'll have this financial freedom, residual income, all these things get thrown at you.

But if you look at the Arbonne income disclosure statement, regional vice presidents are not making much money at all.

I checked just now and the average for a regional vice president is around $34,000 a year.

The lowest paid regional vice president makes $2,000.

They are actually still very low at the pyramid, but I think just the idea of this Mercedes makes you seem like somehow you've made it.

It's just all part of the game, the mind manipulation that's happening.

I want to explain what happened the month that

my team did enough to qualify for the Mercedes.

It was the Global Training Conference.

So for Arbonne, what that means is it's like conference.

It's like the large group awareness training where everybody travels and, you know, anybody who's anybody in Arbonne,

you go to this event and it's just like

indoctrination.

It's just like rah-rah,

loud music and jumping and whatever.

But they sell products there and it's always new products and you have to purchase the new products.

And not only that, but in Arbonne, you are taught you need

a set of the new products for yourself.

You need a set to give to friends and families and really valuable customers who may join your business.

You need a set

to use for your in-home presentations and to sample people.

And then you also need a set for backup because these products will sell out.

And if your clients who don't get in on the sale want to buy them and they can't, you can retail it to them.

How much money is that

for sets of the new products?

So that month,

I think every set was like $500.

But the worst part, when I look back, is I'm teaching my team to do that.

And actually, it wasn't my idea.

This is like coming from

everybody that month.

So my

business tripled that month.

And we did like 60,000.

And

that's actually what happened.

And when you first join, you're told, like, it's, you get this free white Mercedes, or you earn Arbonne will pay for a bonus, will pay a car bonus towards a white Mercedes if you just could get yourself to regional vice president.

What it actually means is

you go to the Mercedes dealership, you get a three at least a three-year lease in your name with your credit score,

you sign up, so you're locked in, and now I see it clear as day.

It's a way to keep you locked in for the next three years because how are you going to pay for it?

And you put it in your name and Arbonne gets all the credit for it.

It's like, oh my God, thank you, Arbonne, for like gifting me this Mercedes, but it's in your name and your, it's it's on your credit.

Was it, um, was there reimbursement enough to actually cover the lease

and insurance?

No.

And the Mercedes has to be white.

That is a huge thing.

Whiteness, purity.

I mean, that's just like a whole other racist book.

But yeah.

Yes.

But at the time, remember, Jennifer wasn't seeing any of this as a bad thing.

She was pumped.

In fact, she wrote about how thrilling it was in her journal.

August 11th, 2019.

So this is right after,

like, I picked it up from the Mercedes dealership.

And we have what's called like a Ben's bash.

And I wrote this.

That I wanted to be the Rachel Hollis of Network Marketing.

Rachel Hollis of Girl Wash Your Face and My Toilet While You're At It, Fame.

You ready for the kicker?

She still has the car in Crystal Falls where all of her friends and family, who she recruited, where they all live, and it says Arbonne on it.

I shit you not.

There are chrome placards over the wheel wells that say Arbonne.

Embarrassment on top of embarrassment.

Like I wanted to take...

a spoon to them and pry them off.

I didn't have a knife with me.

Prior to

the whole Mercedes thing,

I was stuck at that level for four and a half years.

Here, I quit my job thinking it's only going to continue to grow.

And I, I'm all in, as they say, because I don't have anything to fall back on.

This is like the only income stream now that I personally am earning.

Like my husband's income was fueling my Arbonne business.

So I'm stuck.

And because I'm just entrenched in all this personal development development and self-development, I'm like, it's something wrong with me.

I need a coach.

Like investing in a coach, a business coach was like the one thing I hadn't done yet.

In the network marketing world, there are a few of those big name coaches like Eric Warre, who we've heard of, and Jesse Lee Ward, and then some mid-tier coaches who are a little easier to get close to, like Ray Higdon, who runs a coaching program called Rank Makers.

Jennifer had a friend who had already taken a course with Ray, so she thought she'd give it a whirl.

Plus,

to join Rank Makers, it was 20 bucks a month.

And he said he kept it that price.

So then, like, leaders would, he would say this out loud.

Leaders would feel okay with having their teams join so they were spending money on his coaching versus investing in their products.

Because if a

MLM consultant or distributor

has $20 to spend, leaders do not want them spending that $20 towards Ray.

They want them spending that $20 on Arbonne or on Monet or Lou Lero.

So leaders wouldn't have

their,

you know, people at the top of the pyramid wouldn't advertise it to their downlines if it wasn't cheap.

Because if it was like $100, they'd say, well, no, I don't, I don't want them to spend $100 with Ray.

I want them to spend $100 on energy physics.

You understand?

Yeah.

So

that was only, that was 20 bucks a month.

And he goes live every single day.

So I was looking for

like somebody to tell me what to do every day, like looking for what was missing.

Like, what am I not doing?

And I thought it was hiring a coach.

And so I listened to him.

And within like,

because he taught.

like more manipulative scripts, he taught like this cold messing, messaging.

There were things that were little, little tweaks that I did differently.

I did begin to like see some

changes in as far as I was talking to more people, which felt like I was being more successful.

And I was following up a little bit more with people because I think I had this new sense of confidence.

Like it was this new group, this new community I was a part of.

It felt very exciting.

And so I ended up actually having like a pretty high sales, personal sales month that month.

And so I thought, this is working.

It like just justified my investment.

I asked Jennifer to walk me through some things she learned from this guy.

Ray sells books that you can order online.

One is called Time, Money, Freedom, 10 Simple Rules to Redefine What is Possible and Radically Reshape Your Life.

There are lots of tips and tricks in there, but it's more of a mindset thing like that book I keep mentioning, Think and Grow Rich.

It's just kind of generic.

When Jennifer joined, she was encouraged to buy more of his books and his pamphlets, and these contained the real specific info she needed.

One called Social Media scripts is literally scripts that you're supposed to use when pitching the business opportunity to a potential recruit.

Here we go.

And

this gives you a peek into Ray.

Having the social media scripts is like having Ray Higdon in your back pocket.

There's literally nothing a prospect could say that could stump me.

We had a little fun with these scripts.

I'm reading the part of a reluctant recruit here, which came very naturally to me, and I hope you enjoyed the performance.

And she's reading the part of, well, herself, but using Ray's words.

Jennifer, it's not for me.

Well, I felt that way too when I first started my business.

I had knew nothing about business.

I don't need any more money.

Well, you may not need money right now, but you mentioned that you have children and you never know what could happen.

And besides, a lot of people don't do this for the money.

We have an amazing community of like-minded people who will lock arms with with you.

And we just have a lot of fun.

And I'd love to go on trips with you and have fun together.

But I also already know so many people that are selling it.

Well, the great thing is, is that

most people know people that you don't know.

Is this a pyramid?

Oh, yeah, I've heard of those things.

This is definitely not what that is.

This is more like building your own little Arbonne tree.

You're building branches of a tree.

A triangular shaped tree.

Like a Christmas tree.

This one is more of an octagon.

Way more money in an octagon as there are more sides.

Okay, LOL, quit messing around.

You want to make money or not?

Not.

I mean,

I thought this was groundbreaking material.

I am not kidding you.

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So then I was called to become a part of his 100K inner circle coaching, which promises to help you get to the six-figure income in your network marketing business.

And so I thought, this is just the next step.

Like, I see now that I was just pushed through like his sales pipeline.

And that was a $5,000 investment.

And I was told that I'd get coaching with Ray himself.

And I would be assigned a coach, but like it was a more intimate relationship with Ray.

And like he.

really takes care of his inner circle.

What ended up happening is he just went live in there once a month.

I mean, you're already seeing him live in a Facebook group every day, in the Rank Makers every day.

It really was no different.

A lot of it was just regurgitated content from Rank Makers.

And then you did get an accountability coach, which I loved my coach.

Like, I did enjoy my time with her.

And I do feel like she held me accountable.

It's just like having a workout buddy, right?

Was it worth $5,000?

No.

I asked Jennifer what was different about the inner circle.

There was much more mindset stuff inside of this group than there was in Rankmakers.

I think Rankmaker starts off as like, do a Facebook Live, send this script to somebody, send it to 10 people, write down your goals.

Like it's very strategy focused.

So that makes people think like I'm actually doing something to grow my business.

Well, then when you get enrolled into Inner Circle, it's all about the mindset.

and of a leader and leadership and

like here's how you think abundantly here's how you lead a team.

It's training's about team culture and how to, one of the sayings in Rank Makers is keep people around the campfire because sooner or later they're going to catch a spark, which basically just means like you're going to burn them to the ground.

Indoctrinate them so much.

Indoctrinate them so much that they just like have to like.

They have to believe.

It felt like people who were thinking bigger.

And that's what you're always seeking: is you're the you're the average of what the five people that you spend the most time with.

So it kind of felt like

what is that?

That's another saying, I feel like it is.

It's a it's another saying that, like, if you're poor, it's because you're hanging around poor people.

If you're sick, it's because you're hanging around sick people.

If you're negative, it's because the people in your life are negative.

So put yourself around successful, happy, wealthy people, and your life will change.

Is that like if someone's, you know, not making the most of their lives, that that's like a problem that could rub off on you?

No, the way it's framed is if someone is sick, divorced,

working a job they don't like,

needing to lose weight, you are the savior who can provide the solution.

And it's your job to change them.

If they don't don't want it, that's on their, that's their problem.

Don't waste time on them.

If they don't take action or make any changes personally, then you don't give them the time of day.

So you don't look for other ways to help them.

It's really not about helping them.

It's about getting them into your pyramid.

And it's like leveling up just...

feels like you're just better than everybody.

It's just like this

self, it's self-righteousness.

It's like, it's self-righteousness disguised as self-improvement.

But Jennifer admits she was all for it at the time and she was good at it.

And then one day, Ray put out a call for auditions for people to level up yet again to an even more elite status and one where they could become coaches and speak at his events.

Here's Jennifer's audition tape.

She wants you to know she is cringing right along with you when you listen to this.

What's up?

My name is Jennifer Ryla and I'm super grateful and super excited for the opportunity to share a little bit about myself, a little bit about how Rank Makers has impacted me and why becoming a speaker with the Higdon group would

mean so much to me.

So a little bit about...

The video is five minutes long and she talks about things like being silenced as a kid or having stage fright, starting non-profits in her community

and of course her work with rank makers

i live in a teeny tiny little town in michigan this is

my passion

my passion to impact more people which i know

getting on stages and edifying everything that rank makers and the higden group has done for me is going to change the world and it's going to make a million dollar impact.

But more than anything, I want to give back to Ray

for

helping me discover what that passion is and to no longer be afraid to get up on stages in front of rooms and help more people with my story.

So thank you so much for this opportunity.

Almost immediately after Jennifer submitted her video, she got a call and was offered the gig.

And

because like my dream, and I'm writing in these Start Today journals, like I'm the Rachel Hollis of Network Marketing, this feels like

everything is aligning, everything's happening for me, and everything that I'm coached about mindset, that it's actually improving my mindset and I'm attracting bigger opportunities.

It's all working.

Jennifer walked through that door and discovered a world of possibilities that would not only make her poorer, but also help her spread that winning mindset all around her.

Think and Grow Poor, which has a much longer history in this country than you might know.

Next time on the dream.

Napoleon Hill was born Oliver Napoleon Hill.

Wait, his name isn't even Napoleon.

Right.

His name is Oliver or Knapp.

He also claimed to be an advisor to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and took credit at one point for coining,

we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

What?

Yes, Napoleon Hill claimed that he came up with we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Would you tell your daughter to say that?

No, then why would you tell yourself and your unconscious mind to say that to yourself?

I don't know.

I call myself idiot 30 times a day.

I do.

Your unconscious mind is always listening.

Okay.

It takes everything literally and personally.

The Dream is written, hosted, and executive produced by me, Jane Marie.

Our producer is Mike Richter, with help from Nancy Golumbiski and Joy Sanford.

Our editor is Peter Clowney.

The Dream is a co-production of Little Everywhere and Pushkin Industries.

If you love this show, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus, offering bonus content, exclusive binge opportunities, and ad-free listening across our network for just $6.99 a month.

Look for the Pushkin Plus channel on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm.

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The interface has it cataloged under AMA, Ask Me Anything.

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So what I did is started a bunch of threads like ask Dan and I questions, general chit chat, just to make friends and stuff.

And every time I've been in charge of a discussion board, I've made a tab called Women Be Shopping.

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