Something You Should Know - Why You Need to Laugh More & Inside Multi-Level Marketing

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

One huge important milestone in any relationship is when someone says, “I love you.” So how long does that take? Listen as I reveal how long it takes for a man vs a woman and who usually says it first. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2289562/I-love-Men-88-days-say-girlfriend-women-134-days-say-boyfriend.html Laughter is nothing to laugh at. We all need laughter because the benefits of laughing a lot are tremendous – both physically and mentally. And after all, who doesn't love a good laugh. Joining me to explain the science of laughter is Ros Ben-Moshe. She is an internationally recognized laughter, wellness, and positivity expert, adjunct lecturer at La Trobe University, where she has taught positive psychology and health promotion and she is author of the book, The Laughter Effect: How to Build Joy, Resilience, and Positivity in Your Life (https://amzn.to/3ICQCy5) Is multi-level marketing a legitimate way for people to earn extra money or is it really just a pyramid scheme? Listen as we take a look inside the MLM world and get a better understanding of how Amway, Mary Kay, Shaklee and others actually work. My guest for this discussion is Peabody and Emmy winning journalist Jane Marie who is a former producer of the podcast This American Life and currently hosts a podcast called The Dream (https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-dream). She is also author of the book on multi-level marketing called Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans (https://amzn.to/43iVu4O) Something very interesting can happen when you ask someone to do a favor for you. In fact, doing so can draw you closer to that person. Listen as I explain how this works. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-initiative/201605/the-power-merely-requesting-favor PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Indeed is offering SYSK listeners a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING We love the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast! https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/business-podcasts/think-fast-talk-smart-podcast Go to https://uscellular.com/TryUS and download the USCellular TryUS app to get 30 days of FREE service! Keep you current phone, carrier & number while testing a new network! NerdWallet lets you compare top travel credit cards side-by-side to maximize your spending! Compare & find smarter credit cards, savings accounts, & more https://NerdWallet.com TurboTax Experts make all your moves count — filing with 100% accuracy and getting your max refund, guaranteed! See guarantee details at https://TurboTax.com/Guarantees Dell TechFest starts now! To thank you for 40 unforgettable years, Dell Technologies is celebrating with anniversary savings on their most popular tech. Shop at https://Dell.com/deals Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know. In a serious relationship, how long should it take for someone to first say, I love you? Then, laughter. It's so important to laugh a lot. The more, the better. What happens when we laugh is we actually stimulate a whole host of happy hormones. Laughter gets the heart rate going and it stimulates the immune system. And laughter

anchors us to the present moment of joy. Also, why asking someone to do you a favor will do wonders for your relationship. And multi-level marketing. Is it a legitimate way to make extra money or is it a pyramid scheme? The numbers don't lie. The fact is this is not an actual business. 99% of people lose money in an MLM. That's worse than the casino. All this today on Something You Should Know. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times,

relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carothers i hope you're in a mood to laugh and if you're not you will be when you hear my first guest but first up today you know in relationship, in every serious relationship, at some point, sooner or later, someone has to say, I love you. It is a major milestone in most relationships. So when can you expect to hear that first, I love you?

Well, in about 88 days, if you're a woman, that's the average time it takes a man to say I love you for the first time. If you're waiting for your woman to say it first, you may be waiting a little bit longer. They average 134 days before they say I love you. Here are a few more gender-specific I love you averages. 64% of men admitted that they had said I love you first, compared with just 18% of women.

39% of men say I love you within the first month of seeing someone, compared to 23% of women. And a whopping 50% of men admit to having said, I love you, by accident. And that is something you should know. Who doesn't like to laugh? I mean, from the time we're very young, we like to laugh. I remember when my son was an infant, he's now a young adult,

but he had this infectious laugh, and if I did something that made him laugh, he would say to me, do it again, do it again, just so he could laugh some more. I recorded that laugh and it still brings a smile to my face. Laughter is wonderful, yet it seems as we get older, it gets less frequent, less important. But maybe it shouldn't, because it seems that the benefits of laughter are outstanding. That's according to Roz Ben-Mosher. She is an internationally recognized laughter, wellness, and positivity expert, and she is author of a book called The Laughter Effect,

How to Build Joy, Resilience, and Positivity in Your Life. Hi, Roz. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you so much, Mike, for having me. You know, people have heard that laughter is the best medicine, that it's good to laugh, you need a good laugh. But how good is it? I mean, what is this all about? Well, it's something that one would think that's just so obvious

that people would just do more of it. But the reality is, is that when we get older and stress and life tends to sort of take, you know, more of a challenging turn, one of the first things that actually goes out the door is laughter and laughter is such an important way to connect with other people and also to really you know tap into well-being hormones and really help counter some of those stressful hormones so it's a really fundamental resource that we are all born with, but over time, we tend to forget that it's there. Yeah, well, and also I think that when you become an adult, when you're supposed to grow up, things aren't funny.

This is serious. We're doing serious work here. We're not here to joke around and yuck it up. We're here to get things done and that laughter is trivialized. Exactly. And I like to say that I take laughter very seriously. And there's a real serious reason for it because it really impacts mind and body. So, you know, there's a lot that goes on when we laugh.

I've got a question for you, Mike, actually. Have you ever laughed without breathing? I don't know. I know I've laughed so hard that I had to catch my breath. Yes. That's really awesome. But you actually physically cannot laugh without breathing. I mean, you know, maybe, you know, a silent laugh for a moment.

But laughter is a very aerobic activity. So the more you laugh, the more you breathe. And we all know about the benefits of aerobic exercise on the body. But what happens when we laugh is we actually stimulate a whole host of other things like, you know, our bodies, known as happy hormones. So that's dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins giving us our dose of positive well-being. So then, you know, laughter is a very physical exercise. It's like you said, you know, you laugh so much that you couldn't breathe, but there's a lot going on in our body you know it gets the heart rate going and it stimulates the immune system it's uh stimulates our lymphatic pump which are you know the more you laugh the more that gets stimulated and laughter actually anxious anchors us very much to the

present moment of joy and this was actually proven by putting people through an MRI machine and showing them some comedy clips and watching what happened. And the researchers found that laughter in the brain is actually very similar to meditation because gamma waves are released in both hemispheres of the brain, those sort of really healing gamma waves. So there's lots that's going on, as I say, and that's just in the physical regard. So why, this maybe seems like a dumb question, but why do we laugh? And, you know, like so often I wish my dog would laugh, but we don't see a lot of other animals yucking it up and laughing. But it seems fairly human. Maybe other mammals do. I don't see a lot of other animals yucking it up and laughing. But it seems fairly human.

Maybe other mammals do. I don't know. But what is the purpose? Do we know? Do we understand why people laugh? We do. And before I actually go into the reasons of why, I'll actually say that there are animals that laugh.

So, you know, many primates laugh. And they've actually found that, would you believe there are scientists who do this? Tickling rats. There was a scientific research study that showed that rats actually laugh when they are tickled. So anyway, that's on the side. That we laugh because it's this really important resource that we have been bestowed with from the earliest of ages to connect with our caregivers. So we ha ha ha before we ma ma ma or da da da. It's just such a critical way in which we, you know, garner attention from people. So we're fed, so we're, you know, paid attention to. And this important, you know, attribute continues throughout childhood, you know, kids playing in the playground, it's a very natural way of building

relationships. Then, you know, adults, you know, having a good laugh, it can help diffuse tension, which doesn't mean to say that it comes easily. And, you know, I for one have come to this from, you know, not exactly, you know, everything in my life going tip top, absolutely perfect. I actually had a diagnosis of colon cancer 11 years ago, and there's nothing funny about a cancer diagnosis. But what I found still, there was this intuitive voice in me that said laughter and the feelings that it brings are still really important to healing and wellbeing. So the challenge is being able to activate a laughter mindset, for example, when, you know, the chips are down, not just when everything's going great, because that's easy.

Anyone can do that. Well, there's different kinds of laughter though, right? There's a little nervous laughter, and then there's big joke, laugh at the comedian laughter, and then there's big joke laugh at the comedian laughter, and then there's, you know, oh, the guy tripped and fell. Well, maybe that's not that funny, but you know what I mean. There's like different kinds of laughter. There are.

So I suppose if we were to sort of map out those different types of laughter, and in terms of well-being benefits, nervous laughter would be the least associated with well-being. Whereas a full-bodied guffaw, you know, laugh with your favorite comedian or with your best friend would have considerable health benefits. And then there is a different type of laugh that has sort of entered into the world in these past 20 years, which is more of an intentional laugh. And that is actually through laughter yoga. So that was started by an Indian doctor back in the 1990s. And it's simulated laughter exercises together with deep breathing, clapping while chanting ho, ho, ha, ha, ha.

And why this type of laughter is really important is that you can actually switch this laughter on when you're not feeling too flash. So it doesn't rely on the subjective nature of humor to kick in. It doesn't rely on, you know, your favourite comedian to just sort of like walk in the door or your best friend. And whilst that might sort of seem a little peculiar, it actually works miracles. It's just, as I say, I've done this laughter yoga for patients receiving dialysis treatment, which is no joy. I've taken this laughter yoga into cancer wards or into other vulnerable populations where if you were to ask these people, when was the last time you had a decent belly laugh, they really might not be able to give you an answer. So it's a really powerful way in which we can get

our dose of laughter without relying on humor. You know, one of the most satisfying laughs seems to be that, for me anyway, that kind of contagious, you're not supposed to be laughing laugh. Like my brother and I, when we were young, we'd go to church and my parents would have to separate us because one of us would start to laugh. And because you're not supposed to laugh in church makes it so much funnier. And then we couldn't control ourselves. And then the minister would see that we're laughing, which makes it even funnier. But it's like you're not supposed to and that's why it's so great. I know. I've had a few examples of those in my life as well. And I think, again, it sort of feeds into a bit of a nervous sort of laughter.

It's a stress release. And because you've tapped into that contagious nature of laughter, it just happens anyway. And it's like it's so hard to shut down. So, yes, I think we've all had moments like that. I'm not sure where that expression, laughter is the best medicine, came from. But, you know, it doesn't seem like laughter is medicine in the way that medicine is medicine. But there's something about laughter, right? It's not medicine, but it is definitely healing and it has definitely got a positive association with well-being.

So I would never suggest to people who've got a serious medical diagnosis, just go away and laugh about it. That would definitely be very toxic and I do not support that. What I do support and what research does actually demonstrate is that laughter does have a profound impact on our physiology. So because laughter stimulates endorphins, endorphins are our pain management system and they are 30 times more potent than the synthetic morphine. So you can understand that you know someone who has pain you know if they can get you know a bout of laughter happening it can actually dull that pain or even switch it off. So that's just one example. Then because laughter does, as I say, stimulate the immune system and

gets that lymphatic system working, which is a manual pump, that also has benefits to our wellbeing. And because it's also, you know, the more you laugh, the more you breathe. So there's the oxygenation component, but it also helps get blood flowing better. So it actually helps, you know, heart rate and, you know, blood flow. So whilst you might sort of say laughter is not medicine, laughter has many well-being attributes. And the interesting thing is when it actually comes to our mental health, so talking about mental not so great health like anxiety or depression or just generalized stress, there has been research that has demonstrated that simulated laughter, so non-humor-based laughter therapies like laughter yoga, have a more profound impact than antidepressants.

And why that is, is because you're stimulating this endorphin flow, this pain management central. And it helps really, you know, tune into serotonin and dopamine and oxytocin, which is, you know, the molecule of love. So there's a lot of things that are going on in our body that whilst, you know, you might not be able to say that it's it's it reverses disease. It is a it is a really powerful accompaniment for people going through a tough health diagnosis. We're talking about laughter and just how powerful it is. My guest is Roz Ben-Mosher. She is author of the book, The Laughter Effect, How to Build Joy, Resilience, and Positivity in your life.

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Save up to $1,000 on two or more major appliances. Shop now, in-store, or online at bestbuy.ca. Exclusions apply. So, Roz, as we talk about the benefits of laughter, I think we have to talk about, like, how much laughter. You can't laugh once a year and expect to get much from it. So what does the science say? I mean, how much laughter is enough laughter?

Yeah, now that's a very good point. So researchers suggested that you need 15 minutes of laughter a day, either in one exhaustive go or drip fed throughout the day. So that's really going to maintain, you know, that positive wellbeing. So absolutely one laugh ain't going to make too much difference. But if you can get into laughter habits or humour habits, that is a way that we can actually rewire those neural pathways in our brain towards levity, towards seeing the humour, towards finding the funny, towards laughing out loud rather than sitting, you know, watching something on TV and just smiling about it or laughing on the inside. So these are really, you know, we need to have a strategy in which we can integrate more feel-good laughter into our day.

It's a matter of timetabling it. It's a matter of about being really intentional. So, you know, how we spend our time. Are we going to spend our time with killjoys and people that bring us down? Or when possible, pick up the phone, you know, to a friend, even if they're on the other side of the world and have a great conversation. And where there is conversation, there will be laughter. So this is a really fascinating thing that I came across. There's this thing called the punctuation effect of laughter that happens during conversations. So only 20% of laughter in conversations is generated by humor. The rest, the 80% remaining, actually happens because things like this.

I'm going to demonstrate. Mike, it's been so much fun talking to you today. I really can't wait for this podcast to come out. Now, while that might sort of sound a bit contrived, you'll notice that when you have conversations with people, people laugh at the most random things like, I'll see you later. Or, you know, if you're having a bit of a stressful conversation with someone, you know, you might sort of have a bit of laughter to help, you know, ease that tension.

So there are many ways in which we can actually get that 15 minutes of laughter in our day, and it doesn't even necessarily mean we have to buy a ticket to the comedy store. It seems to me, and I've noticed, that laughter has the ability to bond people. If we laugh together, it bonds us closer than if we don't laugh together. I 100% agree. And it's not just laughter, it's smiling.

You know, if you walk past someone and they share a really, you know, full, warm, you know, smile with you, it sends that sort of signal that all is well. It helps sort of diminish any sort of anxiety or stress. And the same can be said, you know, with laughter. It really is the shortest distance between two people and nothing does it as quickly. That's the amazing thing is that when we smile wholeheartedly or when we laugh, instantaneously, we change our physiology because we instantly cue those hormones of wellbeing, that dose of wellbeing. There's not too many things that can act as quickly as laughter between people or a shared smile.

Yeah. Well, I have, I think one of the greatest gifts of my life is there are a handful of people and not even maybe that many. I could maybe, maybe three. And I hope other people have this too. People who I can talk to and laugh. And there is just something magic where it just, we just top each other and, and it's exhausting. It's, there's so much laughing going on. And when it's over, it feels so good in an exhausting kind of way because it was just so damn hysterical from start to finish. Yes, that is just the best feeling. And that's, as I say, you've really sort of tapped into, you know, that dose.

You know, you've got those endorphins just going freefall. And, you know, I encourage people if they don't have people like yourself to find a laughter buddy, to actually find someone that you can check in on a daily basis, whether it's even through WhatsApp and, you know, sharing memes, you know, funny memes, or just, you know, someone that you can just pick up the phone and just have fun, just have a laugh. Laughter with other people is, you know, shared laughter is much more potent than, you know, texting someone and, you know, the response being LOL. So, you know, if you can really find a real live laughter buddy somewhere, even if it's in a virtual kind of way, that is a brilliant surefire way to, you know, to get, you know, lots of laughter and help really decrease your stress because we don't realize how much stress we hold in our bodies. And I think that's

why often after a really, you know, hilarious bout of laughter, we do feel quite exhausted. It's like that release, that relief. It's like, ah. Right, right. Well, and the cherry on top for me is that in those conversations with people that are just so, so funny, and often, you know, like later when you try to recreate it, it was a moment and it's gone. But there are often things in those conversations that you can think about later and laugh by yourself. I mean, I still do that. I think about something that someone said and it just brings a smile to my face and I start to laugh even though I'm sitting in a room by myself. And that is a really important thing that you have mentioned and it's an important well-being tool that in moments where you are feeling a little bit low or stressed, bring to mind a memory that made you laugh or made you feel good because your mind cannot actually differentiate between whether that thing is happening in the present moment,

whether it's happened in the past, or whether it's going to be happening in the future. As far as your mind is concerned, it's happening now. And so that has a really profound impact on physiology. So that's a really good strategy, Mike. Something I think is universally laugh-inducing is the sound of a baby. And I played my son's laugh when he was a child, and he would get into those fits of laughter. And, well, here. It's hard to listen to that and not at least smile. And if you saw the video, it would make you laugh. There's something about a baby laughing that just, well, for me anyway, and I think for other people too,

you can't not laugh at a baby laughing. I think that, again, it's a wonderful thing that you've mentioned is that, you know, everybody has their own unique, you know, smiling or laughter triggers. So for you, you know that, you know, smiling or laughter triggers. So, for you, you know that, you know, smiling and laughing babies is a pretty sure way in which you can get, you know, that sort of dose of laughter happening. And everybody has their own thing. You know, I know someone who, who, you know, is like a cat video-aholic and, you know, is, you know, laughs at these cats. So, but definitely with babies. And I think that that's because there's just this unadulterated joy. It's like before life gets complicated, they're just

laughing just so wholeheartedly that it's delicious. Well, I agree. I mean, if I'm ever feeling down, I know I can just go find some of those videos on Facebook or wherever and watch them. And they always make me laugh and certainly bring a smile to my face and kind of change my perspective on the day. I've been speaking with Raz Ben-Mosher, who is an internationally recognized laughter, wellness, and positivity expert. And she is author of a book called The Laughter Effect, How to Build Joy, Resilience, and

Positivity in Your Life. And there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. This was great fun, Roz. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. This is an ad for better help. Welcome to the world. Please read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings Thank you, and have a nice life. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. At Wealthsimple, we're built for whatever you're building. Built for Jane, who wants to break into the housing market. We're built for Ted, who's obsessed with what's happening in the global markets.

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And as I recall, several years ago, there was a lot of hoopla about multi-level marketing. Several states were cracking down on these companies, claiming that they essentially were pyramid schemes. But I haven't heard a whole lot about multi-level marketing lately, although those companies are still around. Well, someone who is keeping her eye on the multi-level marketing business is Jane Marie. She is a Peabody and Emmy Award winning journalist, a former producer of This American Life, and she hosts a couple of podcasts. One is called The Dream and the other is DTR.

She has a new and very popular book out on this topic called Selling the Dream, The Billion Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans. Hi, Jane. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, thanks for having me. Sure. So to start, explain what a multi-level marketing organization is exactly. It goes by a bunch of different names. Direct selling, network marketing, multi-level marketing. Essentially, it's a business that purports to not work the same as your typical retail sales business. So these are products or services you can't find in stores.

You can only get them directly from a rep, or sometimes they're called distributors. And there's a company at the top that creates a product or a service. And then there's a level below that of people who start recruiting other people into the company. And it is supposed to be an endless chain of recruitment where you build what's called a downline. And it ends up looking kind of like a pyramid. And for most multi-level marketing companies, there's a signup fee. And then you're supposedly in charge of your own small business even though it's just a corporation like anything else the business is really dependent on bringing people in perhaps more than it is selling soap or whatever it is or anything wholly dependent it's wholly dependent um if you really take a

good look at the products often they're overpriced and they're kind of junky or they're things that should just compete in the normal marketplace um you know soap or vitamins or makeup or whatever but the recruitment is the key in a multi-level marketing scheme. So essentially what happens is you get recruited and you have to pay a signup fee or a startup fee. And then you quickly find out that there's literally a 1% chance of not losing money. This is on the FTC's website. You can look it up. There's a 1% chance that you won't lose money. So 99% of people lose money. And they figure it out within a few months and they quit at a loss. And then someone else signs up. And that's the money generator for an MLM is the constant influx of new recruits signing up, paying the fee, buying some products to show to their

friends and family or to use a A lot of these companies say, you're your first customer. You need to stock your house with this stuff. Get rid of all of your other brands that aren't our brand. And Amway is very famous for that. Amway... I think it's called Amwayification or something. Just like you Amway your whole house. And then you realize a few months in or a few years in or decades for some people that you are operating at a loss and you quit. And then the next person shows up to take advantage of this amazing opportunity. So here is the thing that I think is confounding for a lot of people. If these companies like Amway and Mary Kay and Shackley and the others,

if they are pyramid schemes, why have they been around so long and why are they still around? Because typically a pyramid scheme eventually collapses on itself because it can't keep going. And all of these companies claim to have people that are making a lot of money. Well, every MLM does have people who got rich at the very top. Those people are definitely getting rich because they're skimming off of all of the failures at the bottom, essentially, everyone's failures. So there are people who have gotten rich. There are people who have made some money who then have to kind of parade that some little bit of money around as if it's a lot more than it is. And the reason they still exist, I think, I mean, there's a ton of reasons.

One is, you know, we just love the idea of the opportunity in America. I do believe that there are pyramid schemes, but it takes so much work to prove that in court for the FTC. And we only have the FTC, really, that's our only regulatory body that would go after these companies. And the FTC is very small. And it's also in charge of every other kind of fraud in the marketplace. So they deal with credit card fraud, with spam and phishing schemes. They deal with identity theft. They deal with false product claims, all kinds of stuff that in the grand scheme of things, the multi-level marketing companies where people are seemingly happy to join isn't their number one priority. I wish it were, but it's not. So people signed up with this promise that you could

be that 1%. You could be that millionaire and you can't, but it sounds really good. And in order for the FTC to go in and shut it down, they have to get a bunch of people who signed up to do this to one, admit that they were suckered. And then two, admit that they suckered everyone around them. Because this is, in an MLM, you are a victim and you victimize people at the same time. And both of those things, for someone to identify, like self-identify as both of those things is really, really difficult. So, you know, you do need people who are willing to stand up and say, hi, I actually got suckered and I roped my mom into the same deal. And those are just few and far between, hard to come by. But a true pyramid scheme will fail on its own. It will collapse on its own. And these things keep going. Because they have another element to them that the pyramid scheme does not. I mean,

there are literal pyramid schemes that have no product or service exchanged. And that's one way that these companies claim legitimacy. But they also have this other, almost all of them have this other arm for revenue, which is self-improvement, like some sort of classes you can take or inspirational conventions you can go to or, you know, books. And Amway was famous for selling really expensive cassette tapes that are supposed to rev you up every morning as you're, you know, hitting the town to try to find recruits. And that stuff keeps people really positive and gung-ho about a thing that isn't working, and it keeps money flowing into the company.

So clearly, listening to you, you are not a big supporter of multi-level marketing. But if we had the heads of those companies here, and I imagine you've spoken to them, what would they say? What would be the rebuttal to what you're saying? I have asked them to respond to me, and they've come into my studio, and we've all sat down and talked. They say, if this was illegal, we would be shut down. And I say, it takes resources to bring a case against you,

so it doesn't mean you're not doing anything right now that's illegal. It just means that we would need teams of lawyers and investigators and detectives on the hundreds and hundreds of these companies to shut you down. They say, oh, people come into this not trying to make money at all. They come into an MLM for the camaraderie or they sign up just because they like the product and they like it so much that they want to use it and they want to sell it to their friends and family. Well, those things are feelings that you can have, but the numbers don't lie. The numbers don't lie. The fact is, this is not an actual business, a viable business. 99% of people lose money in an MLM.

That's worse than the casino. Chances of making money at the casino are, what, 49% or something? The house has a little bit of an advantage. This is not a real business model. Do the people who run these acknowledge and not dispute that number that 99% of the people who they bring in, they do dispute it? They do. No, they do acknowledge it. And they've been asked to, and some have been forced to put out income disclosure statements. So you can find them for almost every MLM if you Google. I mean, if they're like an established MLM, I don't know if brand new ones are up on this yet, but

they're called income disclosure statements. And they have like a chart of how much money people make at the different levels. What they don't include in the chart, and the chart is they're dire. If you look at it, it's like 0.1% make over $100,000. 0.5% make over $50,000. And then the rest is just like nothing. And it's all right there in black and white. There's been a few studies done though, where they put these income disclosure statements in front of people. and based on your personality and your cultural upbringing, your outlook on life, your ideas about capitalism, all of that, you either see yourself in that 0.01% or you say, this is ridiculous and this would be a really stupid

investment for me because there's no chance that I would ever make money. So I know very little about multi-level marketing. Well, I'm learning a lot right now. But even I know that this whole industry has a reputation that a lot of people sign up. Very few, if anybody, makes any money. Usually people bail out pretty quick. And so if people know this going in and still opt to decide to try to sell products and recruit people for one of these companies, well, isn't that then their problem? If the companies weren't being so dishonest and shady from the beginning, if they weren't making income income claims if they weren't saying you can get rich i i would say yeah do whatever you want with your free time go and join a club like this that

costs you a lot of money to hang out with your friends and you know use a certain soap with your friends that you're all just spending money on and no one else is i would say that that would be fine but there are deceptive practices going on. These companies don't lead with the truth. And then because of the, again, our psychology as humans, the shame of being involved in one makes the dominant narrative, oh, I just didn't have what it takes. Instead of, I got roped into a scheme that is built to fail that I was roped into based on lies. I don't know anyone who's been recruited for an MLM. And I've talked to thousands of people at this point who weren't recruited with the promise of making money. But weren't those people aware of the risk?

Don't those people hear on the news that these things are pyramid schemes and the chances of you doing well are almost nonexistent? Are they that gullible? No, they're not gullible. No, I think that what a lot of them say is, you know, you're just a hater. You don't understand. You're not part of the organization. I get a lot of like, oh, you're just a hater. I don't think anyone who goes into an MLM is stupid or truly a sucker or gullible. I think they're the most hopeful people

on earth. I think they really, really have bought into the American dream and this idea that we're a meritocracy and that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and that the system is built for you to win. And I think they're really hopeful, positive, optimistic folks who may get all the information and say, yes, there's only a 1% chance you're going to win at this, but you look like a winner to me, is what their uplines are saying. You look like that 1%. You can be that one. So I understand, and you have certainly driven the point home, that making money as a participant in multi-level marketing is a long shot, a real long shot. But that other part about the camaraderie

and the networking of people, and you get to mix with all these other people and become friends and all that. Is that a thing? And if so, isn't that maybe good enough? If that was on the marketing materials and said, this is actually what you're getting for what you pay, I think that would be fine. If it was more of a club that you're joining and you and your friends do some rah-rah sessions or you get a... My grandma was an Avon lady and she really liked it. And you would get like a special blazer, you know, with your, if you, with your like 10th recruit or something.

And she had like pins that celebrated her and, you know, they would have people walk across the stage when they like reached on certain number of recruits. All of that is a big reason people join, but it isn't what the company is selling. I think if the company said, we're kind of like a beauty contest. You have to pay to be Miss America. You have to pay to be involved in that world. And you know that it's at a loss and you know that there's no chance you're going to win. But it's very transparent that it's club that you're joining or it's like an activity. That's one of the things that the DSA has told me in the past, Joe Mariano, who runs the DSA, which is the Direct Sellers Association. It's their big lobby. He says, well, for a lot of people, it's an activity. And I said, then just put that in

the literature. Tell people in MLMs that that's how they should pitch it, as an activity where 1% of people make money. And that's fine. That's a different business, though. correctly or why I'm even remembering this, but it seems to me that like in surveys and things like Amway detergent came out pretty good. Like the products may not be so bad. No, it's just really, really expensive. I mean, you know, I haven't compared laundry detergents personally for efficacy or what, you know, people are hoping for. But I do know I have compared pricing between specifically laundry detergents from Amway and all of the mainstream brands. And they are by far the most expensive. And so the efficacy of them would have to be... If they were the best laundry detergent on the planet,

why wouldn't they sell in stores? Why don't they want to beat the market? In a fair and open market, why don't they want to be the winners? Because that's not their focus. When the guys who started Amway started Amway, they began it without a product. They began with the MLM business model. And then they searched for a product that people would go through quickly and need to repurchase. And they chose soap. You know, it's kind of weird and hard to understand why, well, a couple of things. These companies have been around a long time and continue to thrive. And it would seem that if they are operating illegally, they would be shut down, that state attorney generals or the Federal Trade Commission or somebody would do something.

And you say that's one of their arguments, that if we were operating illegally, we would have been shut down a long time ago. But also, there's also this thing that nobody seems to really be very outraged by this. You don't hear people talking about this at a party about how horrible multi-level marketing is. It seems as though either people don't get it or they don't care about it. Same Zs, Michael. That's why I wrote the book and made the podcast is because I had the same feeling is like, wait a minute, why isn't the dominant narrative the truth? Why, how has it not come out? And a lot of what I've learned is really just, we have

especially in America, but in a lot of developing countries and neoliberal societies, we have these psychological, these logical fallacies that we engage in in our everyday life, no matter who we are, whether we're involved with an MLM or not. So one of them is honoring sunk costs. So there's this idea that, and everyone can identify with this, there's this idea that if you spend money on something in an MLM, it would be on your sign up fee. You want a return on that investment. So same as when you buy a lemon and your car keeps breaking down and you keep fixing it and keep fixing it until you finally get to the point

where you're like, you know what? I've put $10,000 into this thing. I didn't want to give up. I thought eventually this thing would start running again. And we all do this in our day-to-day life all the time. Losses hurt way more than wins feel good. We know that about human brains. And so we do a lot to avoid feeling losses or realizing our losses. And we do a lot to give our losses one more chance to turn it around. So that's only one of the psychological elements here, but I found that there's so many that keep people involved and keep people from self-identifying as victims when they come out of it. And the system is really brilliant in that way because they tell you, all the MLMs will say, your first recruits should be those nearest and dearest to you. It should be your family. It should be your best friends. It should be your neighbors.

Well, okay. So then you set up your entire neighborhood and your whole family and rope them into this business. It doesn't work for you. You're either like the pariah, if you really wanted to be loud about it and tell the truth about this, you're a pariah, which is what a lot of anti-MLM people feel now is that they are alienated from friends and family that got into it who are still believers. It's changing. It has been changing in the last 10 years. I've seen way different discourse happening online and Reddit. And, you know, if you're on any of the social media, there's a lot of anti-MLM content out there and people are being louder and people who are being loud who have just recently left. Well, again, this is something I think people have heard about for a long time.

It's interesting to get some of the details from you and get a better understanding of what the multi-level marketing world is like. I've been speaking with Jane Marie. She is a Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist, former producer of This American Life. She hosts the podcast The Dream and DTR. And the name of her new book is Selling the Dream, The Billion Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Jane. Thanks for coming on and explaining all this. Okay. Thanks, Michael. Thank you. If there's someone you'd like to get to know or get closer to, try asking them to do you a favor. A study in the Journal of Human Relations revealed

that when someone gives you the time of day, or gives you advice, or does another small favor for you, a connection is made. And it's a more powerful connection than if you were to do a favor for them. In most cases, it just feels better to do someone a favor than to ask for a favor. And then it opens the door for a return of the favor, in the form of lunch or a cup of coffee. And then presto, you've got yourself an opportunity to get to know someone a little better. And that is something you should know. If you enjoyed this episode, one of the best ways, or really the best way, to show your support for something you Should Know is to share an episode.

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