Episode 5: Insecurities, FOMO, and One Unforgettable Night

Hey, I’m excited to have you back for another episode of the MLM Exposed Podcast. Don’t let the title freak you out. We are not anti MLM and these are not bash sessions. We are, however, pro truth and pro dialogue, and you deserve to hear it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. If you’re new to our community, we drop a new podcast each week.

Everyone here has a story to tell. Some may horrify you, some you’ll relate to, but no matter what the best lessons learned are through the experiences of others. We think those stories are worth sharing. If this episode helps you, please subscribe so you don’t miss a thing. And even better leave a review unless it’s bad.

Then keep your opinions to yourself. Jk. We love the truth here. Thank you again for being with us. An MLM exposed, we believe firmly that when you know better, you do better. And we think this conversation is more relevant than ever.

Revolution. And so today we are just gonna share one very specific story and go on a lot of rants within that story. But Shannon, will you just tell them who you are?

Yeah. Hello, everybody out there. I’m Shannon King. Thanks for having me on. Erin. I guess my resume introduction. I’m a commercial real estate agent.

I have three children that, I want to absolutely consume them. They are my light for real. They call me Smother. Been married for 25 years next month to Michael and we’re Texans. I have a podcast called A Kingsize Life. And as far as one thing that I’m very passionate about is I’m an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse.

So that’s what fills my soul in a big way. Yay. I love

it. You said earlier in our original introduction, because we’ll probably do these 42,000 times, but that the doer of many things and I think that. If you were to get any mom or dad or person on a podcast today, and they gave their resume introduction, it would literally be like, What hats do you wear?

How many, what are the different hats that you wear on the daily and what are your top 10? It’s nobody is just a stay-at-home mom. Nobody is just a real estate agent. Nobody is just a, whatever. It’s always so interesting to dig into people’s, like hobby, et cetera,

et

cetera, et cetera, et cetera, huh?

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that’s a problem. Maybe there’s some trauma involved there.

Uhhuh problem. That’s a lot to unpack in itself.

Yeah, so the reason that we’re chatting today and we both have very busy schedules, so we are keeping the topic very narrow for today. But the discussion that we’re having is, This concept of MLM exposed MLM PTSD, Tales of MLM, whatever you wanna call it.

Because both of us have a background from that space, and both of us have some pretty hairy, scary stories. Lessons learned, wish we wouldn’t have done that, proud of what we did there, et cetera. And one of those stories is actually how we met. You wanna start? How did, okay. First of all, We were at the same company at the same time.

But how long had you been there at the time of this meeting? A few months. A few months? Okay. And at the time, what were, what was your full-time job? I was

in wireless at that time. I guess my actual title, I was a regional director of sales over the state of Texas. Okay, so

I had gotten into MLM I’ll give my little spiel and story.

I had gotten into MLM a couple years prior. I had found some success. It was at a company that did black, green and bling and I had gone to an event, we were in Florida at some sort of bootcamp. Event.  And what happens in MLM a lot of the times is that the trainings are one thing, but the after parties are another.

And so this was the first after party that I had ever been invited to. I don’t know about you, but I shouldn’t have even been invited. I think I was like, pity. It was like a pity invite. And there happened to be a crew of us that got accidentally invited. So the moment I got to this after party, I knew I was in the wrong spot.

It was a big fancy schmancy house at the big dog of this company was hosting this party. And we got there into this gated community and I knew immediately I had made the wrong decision saying yes. Walked in and. I’m gonna get your perspective of this too. But when I walked in, there was, this older man playing dj, bumping it with a bunch of younger women.

There were people everywhere. There were people out at the pool, there were people out at the bonfire, and it felt. Icky,  even from the minute I got there. But it was fun and it was fine and we wandered around. And then, there would be little groups of people because what happens in MLM also is that the after parties are only for the upper echelon.

They’re only for the upper 1%. They’re for the cool kids. And so if you’re accidentally invited to a party and you’re not the cool kid, you’re immediately on the outside. And so from Square one of this night, I was trying to like just be a normal human being and insert myself into conversations that I had no business being in.

And I remember this little teeny tiny woman, I shall not name names, but this little teeny tiny girl who shall not be named. I had said something like, Maybe I said, yeah, I nodded, right? And she goes, oh, I’m sorry. Was anybody speaking to you?

No, she did.

Okay. So anyways so this night ended up being this drunken terrible event where, you know, as the night went on, people kept drinking and drinking.

And the big dog of the group, the owner of the home, Was just completely wasted. There was so much alcohol involved. I don’t even know. And my recollection of it is that somehow we all ended up inside and she had been wandering around the house the whole night, but we had all entered into the kitchen.

Do you remember being in the kitchen?

I, yes, I definitely remember the couch. I’m challenge telling this story my night. This is started my night, started in the kitchen. You just tell

me. You tell me your version and then I’ll tell you my version.

Oh my. Okay.  So leading up, so I was just a few months in and my enroller there was precious and I still love her to this day.

And she had been told, bring your up and comer is how I ended up there. I’d only been there, it was a green carpet event, so I’d only been there a few months and. The person that enrolled her showed up at our house and we all went together there. And that person, I was fangirling over a little bit whenever she showed up because everybody, she was like a celebrity there or whatever, right?

And so I’m like, oh, I’m walking in with them. So I walked in feeling. I was excited to go. Yeah, I really was. And  I walked in and, my experience walking in that house was, it was beautiful that I made a comment to the lady that owned the house that we had the same chairs, they’re in my entryway, her entryway chairs.

We have the same ones. But anyway, so I was immediately taken into the kitchen and I wa, I observed a lot of what you’re talking about, but when I walked into the kitchen, the. Head person, the owner of the house was standing behind her, the big bar in the kitchen, and I liken it to, she had an audience.

You know how everybody would just ha, she had her followers, like they all gooped over her and hung on her every word. So we walked in and my en my enroller. Is that what they’re called then? No I don’t remember what we call ’em there, but she, we, she walked in, she was like, Hey. And everybody stopped and all eyes were on us and what are we gonna call the person that can’t be named?

That person said who is this? Oh, looking at me and. Comes around the bar bee lining to me and my enroll said, oh, this is my next Ambassador Diamond. And that person gets right in my face and points in my face and said, I don’t wanna hear it. I want you to show me. I don’t uhuh, and so I

said, cheating you.

Literally, I looked

her in there and I said, I didn’t say a word to you. She said that, and I turned around. I’m like, shaking, upset. What is going on? Just humiliated in front of all these people because it was aggressive how she said it as if I walked in and said, oh, I, this is what I hadn’t said anything, so I immediately walked out, tried to find a safe space, and went out onto the patio and sat by you.

That was my introduction to that shit show. Yeah, that was my introduction to that.

Probably at the same time you were walking up to the kitchen saying, show me. I was being told, oh, I’m sorry. Was anybody talking to you?

And I,  it absolutely brought up every insecurity that I, little girl insecurity that I’ve had in my entire life.

Going to multiple different schools. I went to 13 different schools before I was in the eighth grade. I was always the new girl, so I was always, I was already. Anxious about that environment and then to be treated that way. Yeah, and my enroller is crying, saying, please don’t quit. Please don’t quit.

Did you stay out a spike? I stayed longer, I stayed out of spite, like to show that lady and all it did was hurt me.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Okay, so timeline, because I started this so terribly because I should have just tried to go back into my memory banks of trauma, but timeline is you guys got there immediately got pulled to side to the side to say, show me.

No, I wasn’t pulled to the side. She did that in front of every, in the middle of

everybody. Did you guys stayed till the very end of the night when the bag of chips got thrown

on? Yeah, we stayed a long time. So I,  I met you outside and we talked for quite a bit, and I remember your shirt was hanging off your shoulder and I remember you seemed really sad and we talked, we talked about the bikini competition a little bit at that time.

You were. I didn’t know that you were appalled. I later learned that you were appalled by the night. I didn’t know. I didn’t realize that at the time. I think you were trying to shelter me from your observations, cuz we just didn’t know each other that or we didn’t. We had just met, but yeah, we stayed.

This gets bad. I don’t even know if I told you what happened after I got back home.  No, because not only, so that was my initial introduction with her and then, I had gone back in and she’s come here. You sit down and sits me down and sits next to me. And  she’s you’re not serious about this place unless you quit your job.

No, I was a senior vice president of sales at that time. Yeah, unless you quit your job. And I was explaining to her, that I’m the sole income provider for my family and that doesn’t make sense for me to do. She’s you’re not serious about it unless you quit your job and. More on me.

Again, people will pleaser, I’ll show you that I’m worthy. Childhood trauma, which they know what they are doing. Yeah. They know what they are. Yeah. Seeking and what they’re trying to bring out and people and what they’re trying to tap into. She know what she was doing. I, like a moron, ended up resigning from my job.

But to go back to that night I still felt the need to be validated and she knew that. And so I hung out and hung on and I should have left immediately. And it was, yeah. Looking back on it, none of us wanna be really, that’s not who I want my circle to be. I don’t wanna be with a bunch of people that are so drunk they can’t.

Present themselves. They can sweep their boobs falling out of their

clothes.  You mentioned okay, so we mentioned this like fateful night of this party. So we talked about this, but not really. What ends up happening with MLM is that it becomes a cool kids show. It becomes a very unhealthy environment.

It becomes an environment filled with alcohol, it becomes an environment filled with. Just sloppy, crazy stuff. And that’s not always the case, but that certainly was here. And so when you say that you didn’t know I was appalled, I think that’s very common. I was appalled, but I don’t know if I would’ve said that to myself.

I think I probably went home going, wow, that was fun. I think I wouldn’t have said it out loud because I got sucked in. So deep. And I was in it. This was my job, and so was I appalled? Yes. But that was the person, we were at the person’s house. We were at the Queen Bee’s house. Yeah. She was the person that we worshiped.

She was the person that we wanted to be like, and then all of a sudden she turned into our drunken crazy Aunt Sally that started yelling at us at the end of the night. But when your parents do that, you don’t always say, I’m appalled right away. It’s almost like you just, it’s, I don’t it. It takes a while to really.

Step back out of it and think that was a really terrible experience.  And I think that’s, yeah. And if we,

if we think about the conversations that go on in those environments there’s conversations and strategy around how do we create FOMO on purpose? How do we tap into that need that we all have, every human has this need to feel valued and to belong.

And those are the, that’s the kind of strategic man. How do we purposely manipulate people? That’s the kind of conversation that goes on in those environments  to want

to be here. And the thing about it is that it’s appealing to people like you and I who do have major insecurities and who would have a conversation with somebody like that.

And normally, and when you take a step out of it, somebody that says you need to quit your job or you’re not committed 10 years later, you can see how crazy that sounded. But when you’re in it and when you’re a person that fights those battles, and when you’re a person that does wanna fit in and people please, and that’s supposed to be a person that you respect, even if she’s a drunken mess, you quit your job.

And so did I.

It’s so crazy and the aftermath of that night wasn’t good. We got back to our Airbnb and the conversation with the person that had brought me there that had achieved the highest status there, and her enroller there had achieved the highest status there. They were appalled to the point where it was, we’re making a phone call to the CEO tomorrow.

Yeah, because this can’t happen because not, I forgot about the fourth person that was with us. She was I actually had a conversation with her recently and saying, do you remember that night? She’s no, I blocked it out. She doesn’t even remember what all happened that night and good for her.  But, so what ended up happening is a couple days after I got home, queen bee calls me, Tells me that she was roofied earlier that day and that’s why she was acting that way.

Listen, I don’t know what roofied there is out there that keeps you completely coherent and you’re having conversations with people all night long and continuing to drink straight vodka martinis, but just straight vodka. Yeah, but that was the excuse given is that she was roofied and so then I was supposed to feel sorry for her.

About how she had treated me.  Yeah. Yeah. And it’s real, it’s really, I’ve had a lot of growth since 2013 as just a person, but, looking back on that was my just deep desire to be wanted, yeah. Being a. Not having a mom in my life and not having a dad. A father figure that, so that’s what happens.

They know what they are doing. Yeah.

Okay. So we go back to that night. She tells you to quit your full-time job. We go and cry at the pool even though none of us are crying. But we probably should have been cry on my inside. And then we go back inside and Do you remember the Kumbaya? And we were like, I swear to God, we were dancing or singing or something around.

Yeah. One of ’em was playing the guitar and singing and everybody,

yes. Yeah. And then somewhere where did the bag of Lays potato chips come in? Because there were some point in time. Where the Queen bee took a bag of potato chips and dumped it on her head. There were chips everywhere. And then the joke was made that instead of yoga Namaste , we were saying, no mistake.

No mistake.

Yeah, no

mistake. It was Lay’s potato chips and no mistake. But then what always also then happens with. The fun drunkenness is, it turns angry. And so then we went from Lay’s potato chips. No mistake to you guys need to get to work. You guys are lazy. You guys don’t Even when we, I think left before

that happened,

I don’t think so because, and then I

stayed outside or something.

Because I did you think you walked for certain pieces out or, yeah, maybe I did. Just pieces that I totally remember, but

the next, wasn’t there a conga line at one time?

Probably I,

I were people who were like in a conga

line dancing around in the see, and  I didn’t also get, see I wasn’t even important enough.

I truly think that they made a list of people that they thought would be crucial phone calls, and I was not on the list. Like I was not a person that she would’ve said, Hey, I got roofied, because the person that invited me said, yeah, don’t worry about it. Do you know what I’m saying? So again, let’s talk about our daddy issues.

Like I wasn’t even important enough in that realm. To be included in the discussion of, wow, that was a not a good night. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. But my enroller left not too long after that too.

Yeah. Yeah. It went from bad to worse, and then she got angry and started yelling at all of us and told us that she was gonna make a billion dollars billion with spit coming out.

I’m gonna make a billion dollars for my family, not yours. And if you wanna come with me, you can, but you need to be going out on the street and getting people’s social security numbers. That’s how big this is gonna be. That’s what’s coming over and over again. Basically calling us lazy and saying that we hadn’t been doing our jobs.

That’s why I knew you were. Still there because your people were fending for us. There became like a battle and then the night ended awkwardly and when we all went home. But that’s how we met. And what’s crazy is that I truly think that everything is meant to be, and I think that everything happens for a reason, but maybe the premise of this story is that,  Part of why this conversation is crucial is because really smart people make really bad decisions in environments that are filled with pressure and filled with, Filled with FOMO and filled with peer pressure and filled with just really unhealthy advice.

I just remember thinking, I have a college degree. I’m a really smart person, and here I am and I’ve ruined my life and how did I get this far? Because you go so far and then you have to keep going. That’s what I feel like.

I feel like that too. And still to this day, I think about how dramatically. That MLM changed the course of my life.

I used to be so outgoing and constantly I. I wore a suit every day in heels and I was in multiple meetings, and that was natural to me. Yeah. And then I got so deep into that world of being on my phone and having all, they taught you to friend, friend people and their goldfish, if give their goldfish a social security number.

And so nothing was real about it. None of the connections I was making were real. And I remember getting to a point where I didn’t know how to interact with somebody without thinking about how am I going to make them a customer.  I couldn’t even, I didn’t even know how to have a real experience with people from that.

And it’s taken a lot of undo-ing, looking back onto that, yeah. I should have ran right then. I should have quit and I should have ran. You think about top performers. A lot of, most of your top performers are top performers because they seek to people please validate. They seek to see their name at the top of a stack rank, and it doesn’t matter how top, how smart we are.

Yeah, you can be really smart and even know that. Yep. In your gut know, don’t take another step forward and we can do anyway. Oh yeah. It’s like I was two years later crying, having left my job and having to realize that I did to my family what I swore I would never do right, which was tap into my savings and worry about finances.

They literally write about that in books that a lot of top performers are actually people with the biggest daddy issues. They’re the people with the biggest chip on their shoulder. They’re the people that you can. Find somebody with extrinsic motivations, which is, I need to pay my bills, I need to save up for retirement.

I need to pay for my kids for college. And that’s one thing. But if you find somebody with insecurities and an intrinsic need to prove themselves or be enough or be loved, you can whip them into doing anything you want them to do. It’s sick. Yeah. And

they still have lived by their numbers. Was I successful that month or was I not?

I, yeah, that’s still, but I’m, I’m not sad about it. I’ve just learned how to use that in a positive way, so it’s healthy for me. But yeah, they absolutely, that was taking advantage of my most vulnerable parts to manipulate me, to make me reliant on their comp plan. Wasn’t, that wasn’t out of what’s in be in the best interest of me and my family.

Those questions were never even asked. It’s bananas. It’s

bananas. Okay  we have a few more minutes of this and I for sure think there are some pieces and parts that we wanna expand upon in many other conversations, but. So you left that night. How long did you stay and what was the turn of events there?

Did you explode after that? Did you flatline? Did you

deteriorate? No,  I exploded after that. I exploded. And I, and that comp plan, which I’m sure that is, that’s a whole nother conversation how broken comp plans are, but I went as absolutely far as I could. That you can get in that comp plan on your own.

Yeah. Building other people and then you just get to a point in that comp plan that I couldn’t do it unless I had another me. But at that point, I got to a place where, I saw the writing on the wall. My check was never as big as it was in my biggest promotion month ever again, had, I spent more money because I was encouraged and pressured to buy my bonuses because that makes so much sense.

And.  I definitely wisened up and as I like to call it, had to eventually swallow a grenade. My pride, I had to swallow my pride but I could never duplicate myself, mainly because I didn’t believe in it enough to. To really help somebody duplicate what I did. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Like I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t lie to people anymore and say, you can do what I’m doing and have all this quality of life because that is crap. I had zero quality of life. Yeah. I was posing when my children were sick, I was posing them to go. And it’s so great. I can be present with my children when they’re sick and not be at an office.

How horrible is that?  Yeah. Ugh. Yeah, so I that it just deteriorated over time.  And then the final straw for me was, I changed careers. I swallowed the grenade and I went back into corporate America, got my real estate license and. So I had some confidence in my skills in knowing that I had an answer and it wasn’t that place and I wasn’t reliant on that place at all.

And I was able to walk away out of strength and not out of fear.  But it was ugly. Oh my goodness. The person that came to my baptism and got tattoos together and, all of that stuff. You’re my tier one person. When I saw her in person, looked at me like I was a piece of trash. Trash, like just disposable, dispensable trash.

It’s crazy how, I don’t know, I just couldn’t ever treat somebody that way.

No, and I think, again, I look at that space and as adults, we’re we are teaching our children to never behave that way and we’re going out and living a life where, I guess you have the country clubs, you have the little groups.

But as an adult, as somebody that is 37 years old I can’t imagine even having anything that I give enough credence to that when you’re no longer a part of it. That. Do you know what I’m saying? I don’t know how to, nothing happens.

Because our story too was standing in that person’s living room.

I was convinced in a heartbeat that you’ve gotta block Erin, she’s out to get you. And I did. And I blocked you. And then, I don’t know if you remember whenever I came to my senses and I was like, I don’t care what name is on our paychecks, you’re my friend. Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. Yeah. And I’m not an idiot and maybe I am a little bit because I was an idiot that day knowing I remember doing it going.

Oh, why am I being pressured to do this? But it was like, if you don’t, then you’re either with us or you’re against us. You’re one of them. And heaven forbid I’m an outcast, but I’m much older and wiser now.

But again,  You just mentioned a phrase that is said constantly. You’re either with us or you’re against us.

I see it every single day. I see it every single day, and I experienced it back then and I see it now, which is if you’re not pro my m l m, then you’re not my friend. If you’re not pro, it’s. The, that’s what’s brewed from the very beginning, from the moment you get on board that anybody that’s not on board with you is anti you.

Anybody that’s not on board with this, anybody that’s not gonna drink this Kool-Aid is bad, is evil, and especially if they used to drink the Kool-Aid, but they don’t anymore.   I had people that still come to me and say, you’re not a bad person. I thought you were a bad person because I was told for years that you are terrible and you are evil.

And you’re actually not. And that’s literally what only ever happen in MLM.

The crazy thing is some people that should come and apologize still won’t true. That amazes me. How can you This true story? Yeah. That I, because I absolutely can respect where people were, because I remember those moments and doing things that I knew I sh like blocking you.

You’re one of my very best friends in the world and we were already drawn to each other then like you were my friend. Yeah. And I respect people that can admit their wrongdoings and admit. All of that and then make a sincere apology and then move on. But the people that wanna act like they weren’t the biggest jerk wad on the planet and I, yeah.

That just still baffles me to this day. I can’t re, I, I don’t respect that. Maybe

I don’t learn something. Don’t think that some of that. Don’t you think that some of that is systemic to the ends of when the wrong people get to the top of whatever we thought we were a part of? That’s a really hard role and identity to let go of when you are an empty person already and you get put in a place where people worship you and then that’s taken away.

Or maybe the, or maybe you do see the reality that’s really hard to admit. Like not for a human that can say oh my God, we’re, we are idiots. I feel like you and I. Would have gotten sucked into that, and then eventually we would’ve recognized it. I think a lot of people eventually recognize it, which is where this PTSD comes in, which is where this complicated conversation comes in.

Because I’m not anti mlm. I’m not, I never will be, but I am pro. You’re not either.

We have friends that are still in it that we both love. It’s not no.

And I buy stuff and I like it. And I think that it’s crappy when people are really anti mlm and when people sit and make fun of, I hate the anti MLM channels, but what I will say

and I hate when people post and they’re desperate for money and they say, I need, I’ve got to find a money, work from home and make an income, but do not recommend an MLM to me.

And I’m just like, yeah, look, I, yeah, I don’t like that either, but it’s because of crap like this. It’s because of crap like this, that those are the. Those are the things that people, they just need to have their eyes wide open. This isn’t like bashing. Yeah, but it is. Have your eyes open. Yeah.

Because it, yeah, MLM PTSD is a real thing. It really is.

It is, we talk to people every single day. It needs to be a diagnosis. There needs to literally be a diagnosis code ICD11 or whatever we’re on, and it needs to be paid for by insurance and put through therapy like mental health and go to cause physical damage.