My Parents Spent 25 Years in an MLM

For those of you who don’t know, MLM stands for Multi-Level-Marketing. I’m almost willing to bet that if you haven’t been asked to join one, you’ve at least heard of people who have. Another popular name for these businesses is “pyramid schemes” or “pyramid scams.”

It gets its name because usually the flow goes like this: I sign up and buy stuff, and then I get 3 friends to sign up and buy products, and then THEY get 3 friends to sign up, and THEY get 3 friends and so on…

In the end, it forms a pyramid shape. And I, being on top of the pyramid, get the most money (because I have tons of people under me), and the people at the bottom are left holding the bag. You might be familiar with the concept as a “Ponzi Scheme.”

Most of the time, MLMs are painted in a very negative light for that very reason. No one wants to get scammed.

Maybe you’ve joined an MLM at one point, or maybe one of your friends or your parents did. If so, then you have a taste for what they’re like.

I grew up not knowing any different. My parents joined an MLM before I was born and have been a part of one (in one form or another) up until about a year ago.

And here’s the part where I start telling you all to get out of whatever scheme you just joined, right?

Wrong.

My parents spent 25 years actively building an MLM business, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

I’m not kidding when I say I owe everything (where I am now, my job, my salary, the opportunities I got, the friends/family I have, etc) to the fact that my parents (and eventually even I) were part of a “multi-level-marketing scheme” (as some would call it…usually those who judged it at face value and never looked into it themselves).

First off, I want to clear up a misconception many have around MLMs. They’re not all horrible. The thing I hate about them, is when those involved try to convince potential prospects that they can “get rich quick.” Don’t be that person. There’s no such thing as a “get rich quick” scheme. Stop trying to find it. People who do this give legit, honest, business-owners a bad name and it makes it incredibly difficult to build a legit form of this kind of business.

My word of advice to you if you are considering joining an MLM?

If your dream of the life you’ve always wanted isn’t worth hard work, dedication, sacrifice, and monetary investment upfront, then forget it.

Dreams are worth chasing only if you don’t wimp out along the way. I also recommend joining a team that grows in a way where it’s possible for you to succeed based on effort and not just “who got in first.” Life Leadership, for example, has a system of building teams where “the guy at the top” doesn’t always make the most money (and often doesn’t – I’ve seen it firsthand). It’s a system based on merit – not who happened to see the business plan first. For reference, that’s the team my parents ended up with for the longest portion of their journey. Also, make sure your beliefs align with the leadership team at the MLM you’re considering – that’s honestly the most important thing.

What was it like growing up in a home where your parents are part of a “pyramid thing”?

Before I get into the blessings I gained from my parents’ seemingly crazy choice, let me dispel one criticism my parents may have gotten over the years, but was the thing that I consider to be the most important and impactful thing they did.

Many people may ask:

“How Could You Leave Your Kids 4-5 Nights a Week to Do This Thing!? Don’t You Care About Them At All?”

Yes they did.

My parents were criticized a lot for doing this kind of business. Their goal was to get out of their day-jobs and make this a full time gig (be stay-at-home parents). They had (and still have) big dreams.

However, until that could happen, they needed to build their business in the evenings, which meant my siblings and I were often at a babysitter’s or grandparents’ house. I honestly believe that the relationships I have with my grandparents are so much better than they would have been if I hadn’t spent so much time with them. And having babysitters over all the time was seriously so fun for my brother and I as kids. Additionally, there are so many memories my siblings and I have with our grandparents that we would NOT have if we hadn’t gone over to their houses as much as we did.

Once, when I was little, my dad was getting ready to leave for a meeting, and I, with tears in my eyes (I was about 3), said “Papa – please don’t go to that meeting! Please stay home with me!” He looked at me, picked me up, and said “Hope – I have to go so that these people can stay home with their little kids just like Mama gets to stay home with you.”

I cried anyway.

Here’s the catch – I have NO MEMORY of this incident. I only know it because my dad told me years later.

You know what I do remember?

My parents chasing their dreams, sacrificing for our family, teaching us to set goals and how to run and hit those goals, showing us how to think like entrepreneurs, my mom reading to us on the couch and making cookies and muffins with us, my dad playing with us after work or on weekends, and playing with friends whose parents were in business with mine.

I remember the example of excellence they set for us and our family. I don’t remember missing them.

Blessing #1 – My Relationship with God

There’s no way my faith would be this strong without my parents being involved with Life Leadership and the thousands of audios I listened to where the leadership of the company talked about their faith and its application to their lives. Their example, and my parents living out that example in our home, has been incredibly invaluable and I can never thank them enough for it. I’ve had so many amazing conversations with my dad and my mom about faith and apologetics because of the materials we listened to and the community we were a part of that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

Blessing #2 – Leadership Habits and Mindsets

How did this “thing” impact our growing up years?

More than you know.

We read a lot more and listened to positive, self development material a lot. We had goals and dreams posted on our walls everywhere (I was eventually inspired to post my own goals on my bedroom walls and doors). Audios about fighting for your goals and dreams and standing up for truth were always on in the car and at home.

I wrote a post called “It All Started With a Cat” where I tell the story of how I acquired my current fur baby. Because my parents were constantly learning entrepreneurial principles, they encouraged me to save money and buy my own cat. I’m pretty sure that I would have been less motivated to do it if I hadn’t been listening to the material they were constantly listening to.

I guess you could say I grew up in a bubble… but it was a good bubble. It prepared me for when I finally left it and headed out into the world. I was armed with principles like extreme ownership, success takes hard and smart work, character and integrity matter more than anything else, accept no excuses, an “it doesn’t matter” attitude, create positive habits, how to deal with people and have good people skills, strong financial principles, and a very strong determination to win.

To this day, I have a habit of reading out of a leadership-centered book, listening to personal development audios, and working out (being disciplined with my life), on a very consistent basis. You can argue with me if you want, but I attribute all of this to the example my parents set for me ever since I can remember, and I credit “that scheme” they were a part of, to their success.

I, as I hinted earlier, even joined my parents in their business endeavor when I turned 19. I had a blast, and learned so much along the way. Mainly, that the best way to create a business is to have a system for it. Systems alleviate the need for you to do all the work, and can make your enterprise grow much faster and more efficiently. I learned what it’s like to band together as a team to hit a goal, and how to trust God in that.

Blessing #3 – Homeschooling

We started homeschooling solely because my mom met another homeschool mom through this business. I’m not saying homeschool is the answer to all your problems, but for me, I know I wouldn’t have the relationship with my siblings or parents I have now without it. My brother was my best friend growing up, my sister and I love hanging out even though we’re 10 years apart, and I can’t imagine being closer than I already am with my parents.

Homeschooling opened up a whole new way of learning to me. One that I KNOW I wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t been for the way my mom and dad chose to educate me and my siblings. I learned to LOVE learning, and to be a life-long-learner.

I remember being in a college class and being frustrated that we were going so fast that we didn’t have time to appreciate what we were learning…It was just memorize, get the grade, move on. I complained to my mother one day about this, and she just smiled and said “My goal has been met. You love the learning more than the grade.”

Another benefit to homeschooling was learning to socialize with people of all ages. As a homeschool mom once pointed out – “Would you rather your kids learn social skills from other 6-year-olds, or you?” My parents’ friends were mine, and I had friends that were much younger than me too, in addition to many my own age.

How did I make friends? Same as you. I was in activities that surrounded me with others and I made friends with them. Easy.

Homeschooling fostered my love for reading, writing, problem solving, and being an entrepreneur as well. In addition, since my brother and I were both homeschooled, we became best friends growing up.

It allowed for a customizable education that showed me HOW to think instead of WHAT to think, and to understand the WHY behind things instead of just facts to memorize for a test.

It changed learning for me, forever.

Blessing #4 – Community, Friends, and Adopted Family

I know for a fact that the relationships I have with my parents, siblings, and various friends, would NOT be the same, nor as strong, if my parents had taken the easy way out and just quit their business, even when it was hard.

My parents: They’re some of my best friends. My mentors. The ones I go to whenever I need advice (I’ve had to learn, as I grow up, when to fix things on my own, and when to seek counsel, but that’s another post for another time). I once asked a friend why she didn’t go to her dad when she had relationship problems, and her response was so foreign to me: “He wouldn’t understand…he would condemn me and I don’t feel safe doing that.” It shocked me, because to me, my parents had always been the ones I went to when I had relationship questions or friendship squabbles.

My siblings: My brother and I have SO MANY inside jokes – don’t let us be on the same team in Pictionary haha. There were countless games we played growing up that would take too long to explain, and we still hang out today 🙂 My sister and I are good friends too 🙂 I’ve even gotten to mentor her at times.

My friends (whom we met through Life Leadership, and others): They’re the kind who would come help me fix my car at 3am at the drop of a hat. No questions asked. Honestly, they’re closer to me than some of my family. I am incredibly blessed to call them friends and “adopted family.” 🙂

Blessing #5 – A Strong Financial Foundation

I know you don’t have to join an MLM to learn about finances, and honestly, many people might even say that MLMs don’t support learning solid financial principles. However, because of the one my parents chose to join and stuck with, I learned more than most people about economics, finances, and investing. I’ve been shocked with the lack of financial literacy in our culture because growing up, solid financial literacy was the norm.

Now I’m not saying my family is perfect and everyone else’s upbringing was mediocre at best. What I’m saying is I was incredibly blessed to have parents who learned these principles and taught them to me and my siblings from the moment we were old enough to understand them. It’s the reason I am 100% debt free and have a significant amount of money in savings, why I have the view on money I have, and why I have the passion for our country and its economy that I do.

Blessing #6 – Praxis (Opting Out of College) & My Career

Because my parents were so involved with leadership thinking and entrepreneurship, I got a different story than most growing up. Most of my peers, at their graduation parties, got asked: “What are you going to DO? What college are you going to go to?” And they either knew what college they were going to, or had a plan to figure that out by the time classes would roll around in the fall.

I got asked the same questions, but my parents always made me feel like it was my decision to go or not, because it was. I find it so sad, with all the college alternative programs out there nowadays, that kids get shamed for not going to college and and not going into debt.

Here’s the thing… not all careers require a degree. Sure, the job application might say it’s “required,” but who would you rather hire? A 22 year old who just got out of college and has a degree and no experience, or a 20 year old who has no degree, but who does have 2 years of experience in the field you’re hiring for?

However, I’ll not have you performing heart surgery on me if you didn’t go to med school, but instead learned how to do surgery via YouTube on double-time speed.

Long story short, my parents encouraged me to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and then determine the best path to get there. If college was part of that path, then great! And if not, then great!

In a crazy turn of events, my mom, because she is so in tuned to listening to podcasts from her years in Life Leadership, sent me a Fox News clip of Isaac Morehouse, Founder and former CEO of Praxis. I ended up applying to their college opt out program and being declined. However, because of the determination I have (largely because of the environment I grew up in, but mostly because of the encouragement of my parents), I dropped out of my college classes before they started and ran a fundraising campaign for Operation Underground Railroad. I got some mentoring from a good friend on how to interview well, and then reapplied and was accepted.

Now, at 22 years of age, I’m Head of Operations at a tech startup called Digifox and working my dream job.

And I know I wouldn’t be here if it were not for the mindset my parents instilled in me, the countless audios I ended up listening to as a result of their involvement, and the incredible community of people, who, although I’m not related to them, I’m blessed to call my family.

Blessing #7 – An Example of a Marriage Worth Waiting For

I had a friend recently ask me if my family ever fights. After thinking it through for several minutes, I realized the answer is no. Honestly, I can’t remember a time when my immediate family (my parents, my siblings, and I) ever had a fight that lasted more than a day. We always made up before bedtime (usually). Obviously, my siblings and I had some squabbles when we were little…probably every day. But no huge, dramatic, drawn-out fights.

This translated into getting to witness my parents’ marriage. When they fought in front of us, they made sure to apologize and make up in front of us. The love they have for God and each other is truly incredible – I’ve seen them make sacrifices for each other, serve each other, love each other, and just do life together. Not only did I get to see my parents’ relationship with each other, but I was constantly hearing and watching other couples from Life Leadership talk about their marriages and watching the example of incredible men and women with amazing marriages. They all inspire me so much to have a marriage like that someday.

But nothing was as inspiring as watching my own parents.

The way my mom treats my dad inspires me greatly and I aspire to be the kind of wife she is, and the kind of mother she is. I have the best mom in the whole world and I’m so blessed to have such a great relationship with her still 🙂

Watching my dad and the amazing way he leads our family, serves my mom, and mentors many of our family friends has shown me what an honorable husband, father, and friend should look like. He is humble, caring, strong, and just the best father I could ever ask for.

I am beyond blessed to have parents who not only stuck together, but don’t hide the fact that they both love and like each other 27 years later <3

“Your Parents, Nor You, Ever “Made it Big.” Was It Worth It?”

1 million times yes.

As in any business, some years were profitable, and some were not.  Sure, we didn’t “get rich” in monetary terms, but in everything else we are overflowing with blessings (including solid finances).

I owe everything to my parents and their crazy “pyramid thing” 😉

And when I say everything, I mean darn near everything.

Mom and Dad – Thank you so much for sticking with it even when people (even people we loved) told you that you were nuts. Thank you for finding babysitters to go out and make a difference in other people’s lives (and thus sacrificing time with us in the short term). Thank you for always believing in me and my dreams, for inspiring me always to do my best, and for being my biggest cheerleaders. Thank you for fighting for me and our family no matter what, for goal setting with us, teaching us how to dream, and preparing us to succeed in this life on into eternity. I love you guys so much – keep being amazing 🙂

Every single hard moment, the late nights, the long drives, the no shows, the crazy stories… I appreciate you going through all of it.

And I can never thank you enough.

 

Blessings,
Hope Szymanski