Hi: ======================================== So, if you find yourself in an MLM that seems to twist and turn the more you investigate it, what do you do? Do you: (a) just go inactive and hope some other people will do all the work for you (a popular choice)? (b) quit on principle? (c) put up with being lied to and manipulated? (d) perpetrate the secrets to newcomers and treat them the same as you were treated? (e) become a lone wolf and tell people up-front all the bits that the big-pins want you to shut up about? ======================================== I would: (f) Walk away and never look back because time is the only commodity I can never replace, so I wouldn't waste any more of mine on them. If anyone asked why I quit, I would tell them. Otherwise, I would not waste time arguing with people that are still sipping their purple koolaid. : ) Linda P.S. (f) of course, is (b) with the Linda factor applied. lol

Linda, Do not misconstrue what I am about to express as feeling as though your comments were taken personally, they are not. I am commenting based on many experiences. I too often see people make a decision based on what their own set of principles without having actually experienced what happened themselves. This is what I decry against. Now, Linda, would you choose (f) if you had $30,000 + sitting in a "program" waiting for one little change that happened before but now has not? I mean, $30,000 to $100,000 earned sitting there, just waiting for the right moment, the right occurence. You say (f) so easily. Have you really been there? Have you really been faced with that decision? Going inactive leaves the potential open without more investment of time, slim I know, but it is still there. It is an ego thing also. The money already invested. The hopes already believe and COUNTED on! The time invested. The comments made about you would never give up. You will never let anyone steal your dreams. Linda, you have many talents other people do not have. You have many assets others do not have. Sometimes MLMs give the average person the hope, if only temporarily, that they too can break free from not being in control of their lives. Sometimes I think those who have not really experienced it are so sure of what they would do, yet when and if it really happened to them, I think the only reason they would do what they said they would do is because they said it, to save face. Its like those that are healthy and have always been basically healthy. They have little time for those that are not. They do not know the pain and anguish. They do not understand the YEARS of somehow keeping hope alive. It is like queen Antoinette who heard the people starving and said, "Well let them eat cake" Many people are this way about finances also. I had one man tell me the reason I was poor as a teacher is because I drank soda pop, wasted all my money on it and other frivilous things. Let no one pass judgement upon others until they have walked a mile in their shoes at least.

Hi David: ========================================== I too often see people make a decision based on what their own set of principles without having actually experienced what happened themselves. This is what I decry against... (snipped)... Linda, you have many talents other people do not have. You have many assets others do not have... (snipped)... Let no one pass judgement upon others until they have walked a mile in their shoes at least. ========================================== Let no one pass judgement upon others until they have walked a mile in their shoes at least... I like that phrase. A lot. It's what my mother always taught us. David, I'm going to tell you a little story that not many people know. Or rather, a condensed version of it. 15 years ago, I was sickeningly wealthy. My husband and I owned two houses, one in Canada and one in Texas. We had 4 vehicles and a 3,000 square foot house. We'd recently signed a million dollar business deal. When I'd met him, decades before, he and his father were running a two man show, in a one room office, in the attic of another guy's business in the bad part of town. I helped grow the business to where we were. My ex was an alcoholic. The real problems started when he got into prescription drugs. The marriage got ugly. Too ugly. The day we split up, I was taking my daughter to school while he and his father were busy changing all the bank accounts. Overnight, I had access to nothing. I had a kid to feed, a mortgage to pay, bills due, and less than $900 in my own personal account. I re-launched a business of my own. It was really lean at first. A couple of years later, I was starting to do okay. I started by working with Mom and Pop businesses. Over time, I started to pick up corporate clients. To make a long story short, after a couple of years in court fighting over money, I walked away from everything. I signed the house over to the lawyers to pay the legal bills. My ex got everything else. My lawyer wired me 5 thousand dollars. That's what was left after he took his fees out of the sale of the house. By then, I'd already met Peter. I shut down my business and used the 5K to move more than halfway across the country. I walked away from everything to find peace of mind. I literally "started my life over". Since then, I have fired clients that eat my brain. Trust me - it's an agonizing decision. When I'm working for a percentage and know that firing a client will take $1,500 per month (or more) out of my income - yes, that's a hard call to make. Very hard. More so because I know *I* am all my daughter has. She doesn't have a second parent she can go to. (She has Peter as a stepdad, of course - but it's still this one household that she has to turn to) But I've done it. Several times. Walked away from money when I felt I had to. I never said it was easy - just that I'd do it. I have, and would again. If there is one thing I learned in those rough years, it's that given money over peace of mind, I'll take the peace of mind any day. ANY day. Money can be replaced. Time can not. I can never get back the years that I wasted but I can promise myself not to waste any more of them. The things I say - I say from experience. I have walked away from money... more than some people will ever see. I have fired clients that were paying me very good money. More than once. It's hard, but I'd do it again if I felt I had to. David, along the way, I learned one other thing. If you've ever read the book Psycho Cybernetics, you'll be familiar with this concept. We attract more of that which occupies our minds. Live in chaos and we attract more of it. Live in peace and happiness - and by our principles - and we attract more of that. I believe that with all my heart. I've walked a lot of miles in these shoes... : ) Linda

Hi Linda, I know you are a fighter. I know you have been through tough times. You have not loved and lost in an MLM. Those are not the shoes you have walked in. I have. To become inactive in my opinion is not a waste of time like you keep equating it as in certain scenarios. There is never a cut and dried answer to a generic question. The question you asked was generic because there is no specific scenario mentioned, only MLMs in general.

I would like to understand a couple of things. 1) Does it matter where the money comes from? Walking away from any amount of money is walking away from any amount of money. 2) I hope that you will excuse this David, but I for one cannot understand why anyone would leave $30,000 to $100,000 in the control of someone else "just waiting for the right moment, the right occurence". In my mind the right moment was when it was considered as money earned, that would have the right occurance, anything else would just prevent me from allowing me to invest in why I make money, bettering things for my family and not some corporate entitiy.