Emma Limb is a utopian idea. You put yourself in that utopian mindset and you're going to have your own business. You're gonna have so much more time freedom, You're gonna be a better mother, a better wife, a better woman, a better partner. Everything none of us is real. Welcome to was I an occult? I'm Lizzie Acusi and did again I am Tyler Mesome. Now, for those of you who are new to our little show, we here tell tales of those who were in and left cults, and for those who need help understanding our format, we bring lightness and levity to intense stories for a number of reasons, but mainly because we are showcasing the fact that people don't need to live in their trauma. Yes, and everyone thus far we've interviewed has healed enough to be able to reflect on their experience without retraumatizing themselves. And we use humor because a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine good. In fact, the guests are often the ones who are laughing the most as they recall some of the absurdities that the cult they were in presented them, and they're thrilled to be given a space that humanizes them and their experience. Our guests appreciate that it makes them feel seen and hurt and treated as eagles, not as an animal in a zoo that everyone wants to look at but it's terrified to touch. They also appreciate having the subject matter handled by people Liz and I who have been through it ourselves. Our guests are strong badasses who are brave enough to tell their stories, and we give them that platform. But again, anytime you try something new, i e. Blending comedy with trauma, there are some who just don't quite get it. In fact, some trolls have reacted poorly to our use of levity, thinking we undermine the guests experience or make fun of that. But mind you, if you actually listen to the show, we never make fun of the guests. We only ever make fun of Tyler. That's true. So today we're going to try something new, well, not new, but familiar. Perhaps we're going to approach this episode about a woman who was in a cult with gravity and somberness. There will be no jokes, there will be no fun, there will be no light, any uplifting moments of survivorship or transformation postcult will be left out. We now present to you he knew and improved more somber was I in ac cult. We're just kidding the haters, y'all. We love you, our listeners, and we love this show and we will never ever abandon it. Yes, and we are incredibly excited about today's quite wacky episode. Oh Man, this little lady, she is a force We've been wanting to tackle this type have called for a long time because this is something many don't assume to be a cult because it seems like a business. Tyler. I know you watch many documentaries about oh Man, so little time, and one that we both enjoyed was Lula Rich a doc series on Amazon. Guys, if you haven't watched it yet, to check it out. You'll never look at stretch your pants the same way again. And one of the people that was featured in that series, well, she didn't stop talking after the camera's quit rolling. In fact, she's with us here today. She is the amazing Roberta Blevins, a San Diego girl born in bread and a daddy's girl from a very young age. My dad was amazing, amazing man. We lost him in to pancreatic cancer very quickly. We enjoyed those last couple of months. I went over as much as I could. He always asked for a big Mac and a coke, So I'd bring him over a big Mac and we'd sit and we talk, and you know, I held his hand as he took his last breath, and I leaned down and whispered in his ear and told him it was okay to go. He was my coach for everything. I was a total daddy's girl, and so losing him so quickly was just devastated. The whole year after my dad died, because I mentioned I would bring in Big Max, I would equate the feeling of eating a cheeseburger with being with my dad. I was in a very unhealthy place, emotional binge, eating like, dang, that butterfinger is the only thing that's going to make me feel better right now. I gained a bunch of weight, and then one day her cousin reached out. She was like, oh my god, if you're looking to lose weight, I just started with this company. We've got these wraps. I'll send you one, see if it works for you. It's just this thing that you like sleep with and the lotion is supposed to like, I don't know, make you skinny, magic skinny lotion. I also have lotion that makes me smart. We better lather that one on, Tyler, because you're gonna need This episode we cover things like math. So skinny wraps and lotion may have sounded too good to be true, but it was her cousin whom she trusted, and the process makes for an exciting night's sleep. Oh you bet it? Does You suran wrap yourself like your Cathy Baits overnight. Part of the deal was that she had to take up before and after picture. I even remember like doing my before and after pictures and just letting it hang out in my before then like sucking it in in my after. I didn't even think at the time, like this is deceitful. It was more like I didn't want to let my cousin down. And she's like, it worked. It's called it works. Just so we're clear about this company. It works. It don't work, y'all. Bullshit, all bullshit, all of it. Instead, try healthy eating. Also, don't use suran wrap for leftovers. By the bees wax. It's really cool and the way you get it to work. Guys, is crumple it all up before get it nice and soft. That's how it becomes softer. I didn't know that. Okay, I learned something to how you use the vis wax covers. But for Roberta, she found comfort in the product and in the camaraderie. So her cousin invited her to a Facebook party for the group and asked her to bring friends, and a ton of people were buying stuff, like a ton of people. And my cousin comes to me and she's like, look, you can either get free stuff or you can join. All this stuff that you want is in the intro kate plus more that you didn't even know you wanted. So I was like, wow, how much does it cost? And she's like the kids ninety nine, but like what you were planning to buy was like one thirty. So you're going to save and you're gonna get more. And I will put all of these sales and these people underneath you. You'll get a bonus check, you'll get paid, you'll do all these things. And I was like, due, of course I'll join, And why shouldn't she. I mean, Roberta knows a deal when she sees one. And she was interested in extra revenue. Who isn't I mean, those Disneyland tickets don't buy themselves, you guys. I was always the person that, coming from the background it came from, always wanted to make sure that my children never wanted for anything. My dad owned car dealerships in San Diego. I grew up very comfortable, but there's a lot of naiive at in privilege as well. I never would question people's motives, like if you're nice to me, you're nice to me. Like I never ever thought nefarious things. I'm also the kind of person that's always a perpetual people pleaser. I'm literally the perfect victim. But also I've always been a hustler. Her husband had a good job that took care of the bills, but any additional income was up to Roberta. She was working as a hairstylist, but she's not the type to sit still. She was always doing side gigs for added revenue. I would make customized crafty things for my friends on the side. I had a blog that I was monetizing, so joining it Works seemed like a good way to make a few extra butts. But in order to do that, she needed to sell the product fat wraps, diet ocean smoothies, and other stupid ships that they claim makes you instantly skinny and healthy because, as it turned out, it works. Is an MLM a multi level marketing theme, our company, a business, a band nail. When you join an MLM, the first thing that they're going to ask you to do is they're going to ask you to create a list of at least fifty people that you know. Write down as many names as you can on this list. We're also alternatively told scroll through Facebook and you look for people complaining. I guess it beats the people scrolling through Facebook looking for news. They're complaining about being overweight. Our cellulite cream can fix that. Our wrap can fix that, our pill can fix that. You need to reach out to them and let them know that you have the answer. You're not using their strife and grief for your monetary gain. You're blessing their lives because this company has changed yours. So she would try and sell these supplements and skinny wraps at craft fairs. I had like the little samples and these little cups, and everyone's gonna love it. People take a sample and they try and they go, oh, thank you. And they'd walk away, and I'm like, I felt like an idiot. I felt inauthentic. I'm not a fitness guru. I'm not a wellness person. I was with It Works for like three months. I made like seven hundred bucks. I was like, I don't like this MLM E pyramid thing. I don't want to do that bullshit anymore. So a bit more about m l ms guys. MLM stands for multi level marketing. You might know it by its many other names, direct selling, social selling, social marketing, network marketing. You're basically a rep for the company and you try to sell their products and make money. So the product based ones where you're selling lipstick, clothing, shake, smoothies, that kind of stuffle. Love your mL M voice. I know, are you thick of letting pack to pachack and wish you could be bigger than you are in this world? I have that answer. It's in this bottle of pills that is seventy dollars for two weeks, and you're going to be perfect for this. I can tell. And you're just like, oh my god, I want to join this. What is it? Sounds innocent enough and a lot of these companies have products that are tailored towards women. Some of the more commonly known ones are new Skin, Amway, Mary kay avon Arborn, topper Ware, and then there are others with more creative names like Mona Vie and Manateech, Can, Stamping Up, sport Tron, Sensi Vera, You, Sonna Vemma, Hygienics, Eureka, Plexus, Zano, and some names that read like a cult instruction manual, make your Sunshine, Party Lights, Sunwriter, Living, Forever, Living Japan, Neo Life, New Life, and get a Life. Those are real names. The ones that you would get caught up in if you were a man are going to be more like the service based like Primerica a c N which cell phones for X trading, which is like the foreign exchange in crypto trading and things. They're like training courses. So where does the deceit come in? The scam is within the selling of the course and getting more people underneath you to buy the course. And every single MLM will tell you that it's not about the product. The product sells itself. They don't sell themselves. Just as a disclaimer. In my previous profession, I sometimes produced videos for numerous MLMs. You you you sell out haw called it. They are incredibly prevalent in my former state of Utah. So before you listeners do your research and right in to scorn me about being a hypocrite, just know that I too was conned by the money. But as Bob Dylan says, I was so much older than I'm younger than that now, are you though, because I'm looking right at you, sir, there's no filters in real life. Sorry. And Roberta, she too had thought that she had left the MLM world behind, but like a dormant, herpies virus crawled its way back up to the surface, taken directly from a page in Lizza's memoir called cold Swords. Okay, and you treat them the same way. So that next year, I heard about Lularo for the first time, and it was in a mom's group. We're just an online community. A couple of us have met, and one of the moms posted a picture of her like playing with her kids, and her leggings were super cute, and I was like, oh my god, this lagies. They're so cute, and she's like, oh, they're Lula wrote, do you want to buy one of my youth pairs and I was like, sure, she mailed him from Florida. I put him on. I was like, these are very soft and very thick and cute. These had huge lilies or flowers on them, like Luao at the tourist shop, you know what I mean. And people are like, oh my god, your ladies are cute. All right, Just so we're clear, most of the leggings are not very cute in my humble opinion. They're often loud and they have awful designs. But you guys, be the judge. Pause the episode and go google Lula ro leggings right now. It's a treat. Maybe sure sunglasses because they are going to blind you. So I'm thinking, like, okay, I like him. I want to buy another pair, but I want to buy a fun print that I want now. The desirable prints are called unicorns because in Lularo everything is limited edition, a tried and true marketing strategy. Just look at the sneaker community. It's exclusive and creates a sense of urgency. I want it now before it's too late. Operators are standing by. So I'm looking and I find this pair and I'm like, oh my god, that's my unicorn. They were black with rainbow octopus all over beautiful. I love them, and they don't have them. I do. We have them with you. I do not have them with me. I have them. Yeah, I should have brought you some legs. So I read this, Liz, and I was so sad that you didn't have some leggings. Now you didn't. So I got online. Now you didn't. Yes, and I bought mystery leggings stop, which I believe means you know, you get whatever leggings you're supposed to get. But I think the real mystery is who the funk would wear these ugly things. I got two pairs of mystery leggings come and we are going to wear them for the rest of the show. Which ones do you want? I'll take the hideous ones. Oh my god, can you describe those to the audience. They're kind of well, they're rather soft. They are actually really so kind of get mine are kind of read and they have triangles and flowers all over them. It looks like Rudolph threw up on these. But we're going to try these on and then we'll put a picture on our Instagram. Okay, taking a break, We'll go over to the bathroom and put them on months ago. They are really confident. They actually they are actually comfy. And these aren't normally leggings I would wear. In fact, I don't I would normally ever wear leggings. Um, but they're shapely and I can see the allure I suppose. I mean, they are hideously ugly, but they're very soft. So you're welcome, Liz, thank you. That was amazing. Um, Okay, where were we? So if I'm willing to jump through all these hoops to get these pants, there's a lot of other people that are willing to do it too. For two to three months, Roberto was a customer of Lula Row, working with ten to fifteen consultants to help her find rare, exclusive items, and occasionally she would get on the Lula Row website to find gloves and treat herself to a few fantastic propaganda videos like this one. I've tried like six times. It's the community. It's just a buddy saying like I miss you, I love you. Daniel Delgado speech of we don't sell clothes, you know, we sell community, we sell empowerment. Totally true, absolutely true. You are not selling clothes. You are giving people freedom, You are giving people life, You were giving people hope, you were giving people confidence. Now as a customer, she would be part of the consultants sales gripts, and every so often the consultants would just slide in a little pitch. You know, you might be really good at this. Do you want to hear more? Would you like to hear how you two can become your own entrepreneurs? Yeah, well, you know what, you should join us this Wednesday for an opportunity call. All you had to do was dial in at the right time. After all, it's just a phone call, right, And so Roberta she innocently dials in and then behold, guess who's on the call. It was Dan, the owner on the other end of the line, telling her story like this is the owner of this really important company was taking an hour out of her day every week to talk to us about how amazing this company is. She is referring to Deanne Brady, the founder of Lula Row Quick Rundown. Deanne Brady was a mom on a budget looking for a way to clothe her daughters. She found inexpensive dresses that she bought whole cell and started selling them to other moms at selling parties. Eventually, Dan started making her own dresses and selling them, and in Deanne and her husband Mark Stidham founded Lula Row in Corona, California. The company's name was derived by combining the names of Brady's first three granddaughters, Lucy, Lola, and Monroe. Mark and Deanne are also Mormon, which I could say a lot about it being my former religion slash cult, but I'll leave it aside for the sake of time. Gosh damn it, I wanted to hear about your crazy people, Oh you will. Dan and Mark elected not to start a regular brick and mortar business, but sell their products through individuals or sales reps, and these sales reps actually started selling a ship ton of dresses and leggings, and by two thousand fourteen, the company had seven hundred and fifty of these distributors and Lulu Row did nine point eight million in clothing sales. By two thousand sixteen, it sold a reported one point eight billion that's be billion dollars in clothing. These distributors I regular people selling leggings on their Facebook. We're making money in the early days and some of these women would be on the opportunity call and would tell their stories, and I would listen while I did dishes and made dinner. It's like, I just heard about this woman who was on food stamps for ten years and then she joined Lulu Row and now she has a lake house. That made me feel really good to hear these success stories, and it allowed me the freedom to dream wildly if I had that lake how she's talking about, Oh my god, we could have like a dog and could get like a pontoon bow, and then we can spend the summers on the lake. They're separating me from reality from day one, a popular cult tactic, and Roberta becomes obsessed with the idea of living the life of her dreams. I'm doing that for moons and months and months right it consumed by every thought, and I'm watching people sell Lularo and it is flying off the shelves. I'm watching people by the ugliest things I've ever seen in my entire life, and they are squealing over it. She just wanted a taste of whatever it was. But in order to start selling and working as a self empowered entrepreneur, you had to first buy the product. Five thousand dollars worth. I mean, but all these other women did it, and look at them. Now they're sunning on their lake house, Liz. They're lake house, these women claiming to go from stay at home moms to boss as bitches. I said, I've got good credit. I can get a business credit card. I can put it on there, I can sell it, I can pay it off. And my husband keeps going, no, it's too much. But that didn't stop her from investigating. At least once a week. I was on an opportunity called I'm listening to these women cry about I had nothing and now I have everything, and I'm looking around, going, I want to have everything too. I can sell leggings. This is way better than weight loss pills. People don't need to wear fat wraps, but people have to wear clothes because it's the law. You can't just be naked all the time. They don't let you do that, right, Tell that to my three year old. And I started thinking, it's now it's consuming my mind so much that I'm like, I'm just going to reach out to somebody who's successful, and I start looking on YouTube. But I found this woman when they reached out to her and I said, I think I want to do this, but I have a lot of questions. And she's asked me, immediately, where do you live San Diego. I've got a girl in San Diego. Let me add her to our chat immediately. Hi, Oh my god, it's amazing. You should come over a child. She had set out an entire spread of clothes for me. I ended up buying a couple things and we talked about the opportunity and she's like, I've been able to quit my corporate job and I do this whole time. This woman sat her down, held her hand and asked her why she would want to join in MLM. You have this thing called a why, and it's your reason for doing it. My wife is my children? Why because I love them? Why because they're everything I've ever wanted in my life. Why to the point of tears, Roberta leaves without signing up, But the woman didn't leave her Haters gonna hate. Recruiter is going to recruit. She's messaging me every day, hey, and I'm like, my husband's still on the fence, and they're like, well, he just doesn't see your potential. Potential is a dangerous word. Never fall in love with someone's potential. And if a person starts talking about your potential and how you're falling short of it without their help, run run, run as fast as you can. Don't look back. You can look back, but maybe they're slow and you don't have to be running as fast as you are. But I also don't look back while you're running, right, because then you might hit it bear or a tree stump. Where the hell you running. You're going to make more money than him, and he'll be jealous. They're turning him into an enemy, so that anything he says, I'm already going to be skeptical about what he says and not trust him. The next like two months was basically me trying to convince my husband this is a good idea and eventually broke him down. He goes, if you want to do it, then just do it. So I joined now again. To get started, you have to buy the product that you were going to turn around and then sell. These products come in various packages called kits, and the biggest and most expensive kit comes with free stuff snacks. I am vaxed, waxed, and ready for snacks, Liz. They always were like, you're not just roberta the mom, your Robert of the business owner. What would Rebert of the business owner do? She'd buy the biggest package, which is what she does, and she signs all the paperwork. But she is told by Lula Row that there's a six week wait because there's not enough clothes. We just can't make it fast enough because it's so popular, more enticing and disgusting marketing tactics to create that feeling of So in the meantime they told her to focus on the prep. So as soon as the product arrives, you're ready to hit the ground running. You're gonna need racks and a printer in a shipping area. You're gonna need bubble mailers because you're now a full shipping facility, to hangers, a desk, a computer, iPads because the Apple, it was only Apple. Going to home goods and being like, look at this sign, and says she believes she because as she did, I'm gonna get that ridiculous, ridiculous now. But at the time it was exciting, empowering, she was becoming her very own she eoh, that's a real word they use. Oh. And after her agonizing six week wait, one day the phone rings, get that call and seeing it and being like, oh my god, what do I do? And my husband's like answer it, and I answer it. I picked the package and give Lah all my info and she's like, welcome to Lula Roe, Welcome to Lula Row. After much investigation, dreaming, pleading with her husband, putting money on a credit card, setting up an office, and waiting a month and a half for product, she was ready to put that office to work. She was on the road to making millions. But first, my mom and all of our friends were like, we're gonna go camping, and I knew my inventory was coming, and I was like, this might be the last quote unquote vacation before it's really busy. Knowing that her kit was set to arrive any day, Roberta heads to the mountains, but their campsite had no cell service, which is ideal for a digital detox when the goal is to unplug, but less ideal when you're expecting a box full of stretchy pants that proclaimed to hold the key to the universe. And so every day I would drive to this one spot to check my email and be like, nope, I haven't gotten it yet. I remember driving up to the top of this hill and getting it and freaking out and coming back down and being like I gotta go. I don't even know, like why did that, but it did. Leaving vacation early to go open up boxes of polyester. But turns out this box of Shnazzy Street to Loungeware was holding something else. So I opened up these boxes and they start feeling really light headed and sick, and I'm like cold sweats, and I was like throwing up. I'm thinking I ate bad camp food. But if she learned later, it was likely something else, because I'm not the only person that experienced that one opening up there, Lulu ro I think I got mold poisoning. Mold poisoning from leggings. Oh and don't worry, Tyler. There is so much more on this later. But as soon as Roberta recovered, she threw a big home launch party and she invited all of her friends, Like it was insane. I was selling out of things, it was crazy. And then any thing that didn't sell in my inn home party the next day, I put it online and that was my online launch. I made like six thousand dollars in one night, which was amazing. She was already able to pay back the five thousand dollars she invested right, it did like two thousand on the credit card. Everything else went back into buying more inventory, because you can't sell it if you don't have it, of which she was having no problem doing. It was just so easy to sell in the beginning. I could open up a box and I could sell of that box within twenty four hours, not a problem. And it's true people were possessed by these like the exclusivity factor worked magic. Every print was one of a kind, and Roberta had people salivating out of the palm of her hand. I would have people that were like, I just need that. I'll pay double triple, I'll give you a hundred dollars for that. I just need those pants. I need those squirrels, I need those clowns, I need those puzzle pieces, I need those whatever's Humpty dumpty. It's like playing the carnival game and getting the ridiculously stupid Teddy Bear and being like, what am I going to do with this? Right? But it's working. Roberta's on fire. She's making money as well as making a name for herself and the Lula Row world I'm the kind of person that, like, if I want to be at the top of something, I'm gonna surround myself with the people at the top. So I really wanted to get in good with Dean and Home Office. At its peak in two thousand seventeen, Lula Row had hundreds of employees, a large corporate office, and eighties thousand independent distributors, mostly women, and this made the former struggling single mom Dean a millionaire and a pseudo celebrity. She relished her role in the company. She would create videos preacher Lula Ro religion on stage, all while wearing multiple layers of lu La Row. In fact, she was known among Lula Row circles as quote the layered one, because for retailers it was demanded that you wear multiple layers of Lula Row, which is why Liz, I got you know, I didn't get you another one. How's your how's your leggings? Feeling? Is still the waste isn't working for me because the top part of the waist is cutting into me, whereas the second bottom part of the waist isn't well. Why is that, Liz? Why is your waist so big? Can you just they're going to see on the Instagram, because let's them. They don't get on the Instagram pregnant. I'm pregnant, pregnant and with child. You've heard it here. We will keep our audience posted on every single movement that happens from here on out. Anyways, go back to Roberta Deanne. She was a consummate picture of rags to riches. She was the vision of what these women could ultimately become. Diane was overly loving and overly affectionate and love bombing all the time. You're so amazing, You're so beautiful, how cute you are. You're such a little firecracker. You're my rock star. Love bumming, love bumming, love bumming. She was like my second mom and I never in a million years would think that she would ever do anything to hurt any of us intentionally. And for Roberta, the money kept a rolling in. So I had left the salon it felt like I was a millionaire, and so I just continued to do what I was told because it was working. But the hobby still wasn't on board because he was like, it takes you away, like this is a lot, and I was like, I know, but I'm doing everything right now, eventually Lularo will take over. So he goes, okay, fine, and then I remember going to an event and talking to Diane in person and being like, my husband doesn't want to be involved, and she looked at me blank and she goes, maybe you just need a new husband. Then get a Lula Ro husband. It would be easier to find a husband who's just supportive of Lulu Ro. I mean, obviously I didn't do that, but there was a thought in my head. You had another huge cult tactic isolate the followers from any of their loved ones that aren't in. But he wasn't out for long. Roberta eventually persuaded her husband to attend a lu La Row event. Once he got love bombed, he was like, oh my god, we have to tell everybody about Lulu Ro. I even remember there was this wetter thing that came out called the Memi. It was like this horrible, heavy shawl ridiculous. And he goes, use my credit card and buy as many as you can. We can do this, and I did. We sold every single one of those Memis, and she kept climbing the ranks and bringing in new people. At the peak, I had seventy five women underneath me. It sounds like one of your weekends in college, Liz Oh boom sex joke. It's a good one time. But actually I really did do something in college with all my best friends called a naked steamroll. You know, I'm not going to let that just sit hanging please. My friends would be in bed and I would surprise them naked and I go naked steam roll, and then I'd run in their bed and I just steamroll them naked, and they're like, get college college. But unlike typical cults where you actively have to recruit Roberta, she had a different experience. I never recruited one single person. Everybody came to me and said I want to do this and I want to be on your team, And anybody that would reach out to my upline, they would put them under me because they were building me to rank. Because once I hit my rank, my upline above me ranked up, and then her upline above her ranked to the top. We call it stacking. It happens in all m elms. Upline and rank are common terms and m l lambs, which it's very culty to have your own lingo if it's not clear by now. MLMs are the legal loophole jargon for pyramids scheme, and the reason it's a pyramid is that you were directly connected to the person who brought you in a k a. Your upline, as they are above you in the pyramid. We'll give you a little bit more on pyramid schemes later, but this particular pyramid goes a little something like this. All m l M s are different, but in Lula row, with no one underneath you, you're just like a fashion retailer. At least one person underneath you're you're a sponsor. When you have at least ten people underneath you, but three of them have to be personally sponsored by you. The other seven can be anywhere. When you have ten, you become a trainer. That's what I was to hit coach. Just the next rank is three trainers on three separate lines. So you couldn't have a trainer that had a trainer underneath her. That wouldn't count us too. You'd have to have three separate women on like their own pyramids, basically as trainers on three separate lines. And that's to hit coach and then mentor. That's the highest rank in Lulu row, you need three separate lines with three trainers and three separate lines with three coaches. Did you catch that? I'm pressing the back thirty second button to hear it, because really I did not catch all of that. There's just recruitment ranks. It's like any colds in any rank, it's the same. It's a total hierarchy. But it was because of her team, the people in her down line, that she started to get monthly bonuses. So not from the sales, Nope, the extra money, which was the real money, has nothing to do with the selling of the actual product, and it's literally from the people underneath you. The biggest bonus I got with it, the smallest bonus ever got. I think it was like Bucks. That's the reason leggings cost twenty five dollars, right, because three dollars of that goes into my bonus. So the bonus text you'd have to qualify my whole entire team. We had to sell one fifty pieces a month. But most MLMs there is no distinction between you personally buying it and you're personally selling it. So a lot of times you'd be like, hey, just letting you know, there's five days until the end of the month and you haven't qualified yet. I don't want you to miss out on that bonus check. You're going to get a thousand dollar bonus, but you're three hundred dollars away from getting it. And people are like, you're right, okay, I'll spend three hundred dollars to get my thousand dollar bonus. It's a vicious cycle. But then now you've got a garage full of leggings, and we call that garage qualified in MLM. But then also the product started becoming bad. The material was so thin they would just rip. They would buy the cheapest, most discounted, out of season fabrics because these women are going to buy it anyway. Side unseen how a woman who was a teacher, and she bought a pair of leggings from me, and she was wearing them at school and she sent me a message, Oh my god, Roberta, I literally put these on today for the first time. And she sent me a picture it had literally ripped in a straight line right under her butt cheek. An hour later, she's like, now the other one is doing it. She's like, I'm a school teacher and my asses hanging out of my leggings. Then there was other stuff that came soaking wet, not just damp, soaking wet. I would get boxes that smelled like literal death. I've called it so many different things, poop and wet bathings to dead fart leggings. Death and chlorine is what it smelled like. I was like, why does the house smell like farts? Why does the studio smell like farts? Liz, women don't flatulate? Tyler, excuse me, really, you are seven years old. I got something better, No I do. She's got a fart up high quality programming. Get back to the fucking story police. So Roberta, well, she was curious as well about the fart smell, so she asked Lula Row about it. When they're like, put him in the freezer, wash them, and sell them at a discount. You worrying about why you're legging stink is not an incomproducing activity. You need to set it aside and focus on your business. And you're like, okay, you're right, I'm so sorry. I should be photographing pants, thank you. I was making money, but there's other things that didn't make sense as a company. Lula Row had grown very fast, some say too fast, and they weren't really cut up for that kind of ground. To say the least, a few of these executives had actual business degrees, and Deane and Mark had placed their inexperienced children in important leadership positions. Nepotism net nepotism. Nepotism, nepotism very well done at Lula Row. There were problems up ante and it was apparent to many of the distributors. So Roberta would ask questions sometimes in an online forum. I would ask about like the moldy stuff, why are there bugs in the bag? So for me to be having questions is very bad for the colt. I was a very heavy load burying brick in this pyramid. And then my upline reaches out to me and she's like, hey, I just want to let you know that I have an extra cruise ticket, a cruise ticket to the Bahamas. Now, normally this is a cruise for those who qualify, meaning you sell a lot of shitty leggings, but Roberta didn't actually qualify that month. Suspect it was a love bomb cruise. And make sure she brings her husband because he asks a lot of questions too. Some mL ms will do an all expense paid trip and some don't. Lularo just gives you the room and says, I hope you can afford to get there. It's in Florida. The free trip probably cost me three grand. There was events every day. Hey, you know, see us at eight o'clock in the main hall to learn about blah blah blah. I was like, I ain't doing that on vacation. The vibe on the boat became way too much for Roberta, with everyone walking around wearing the same dumb clothes, the over adorning followers, revering Mark and Deanne and her entire family, the fawning over the executives, the large crowds cheering and chanting, and the Lulu Row name and colors plastered everywhere barf And we were like, is this could tea? She's like, this is weird. The cruise was the first like what the fund is happening? And like most cults, as they grow and evolve, the leader becomes more and more unavailable to her people's. They used to like go around town and they'd spend the whole day in San Diego at this training and you could stay late and you could get to know them, and it was awesome. But the last couple of times that I interacted with Dean, she was a completely different person. They would fly in on their private jet, do their little hour long speech, and then get on the jet and then fly to the next place. That some of these Lulu Row events you could get a brief moment with Deanne at a cheesy, fucking photo booth. You could get your photos taken with Dane. I said, is this not a business training? This is so far away from what we originally were two years ago, Like why is there a celebrity meet and great for someone who's not even a celebrity, And the line was insane to get a picture with Dane. She's not the messiah, She's just a regular lady. That's a little cold. D Remember how Roberta felt about Dane when she first started. I felt like a personal connection to Dane, and I never in a million years would think that she would ever do anything to hurt any of us intentionally. But the whole thing was intentional. It was a scam from the beginning. Only one percent succeed statistically, that is a genuine stat According to research done by the late Dr John Taylor at the Federal Trade Commission. Quote, the vast majority of commissions paid by MLM companies go to a tiny percentage of tops t o pps, that's top of the pyramid promoters. This comes at the expense of a revolving door of recruits, of whom lose money. So if only one percent can succeed statistically, and then is the only way that this works is when one percent succeeds, then has to fail. That's gambling. Here's an odd statistic. Though gambling has loss rate. M lms have a n seven percent loss rate. People lose and that's not just money, right, that's we're talking about the opportunity costs. Right, anything that you're not doing because you're doing this. You're not getting an eighteen dollar an hour job because you're chilling. It works in your living room. Okay, So you may be asking if the people selling these products weren't making money, but the company was making billions, Well, then where did all that money go? Well, if this podcast has taught you, guys, anything other than jokes, it's that the money goes to the leaders. Yes, Mark and Dann lived lavishly with a jet Amass in California, home a seven million dollar ranch in Wyoming, and Mark Well he bought a slew of sports cars worth millions, including that one but too custom made Koonig Sig Ghosts at a price tag of over two million dollars each, one of which recently set the world land speed record of two seventy seven point nine miles per hour, and after the record fell, Mark was quoted as saying, it feels like winning the Olympics. You are the gold medal winner for that day. Well, you're a gold medal loser for every other day. So have your day, Mark. Here's another fund statistic. Zo of product that is sold from an m l M remains in the MLM between consultants, Sales to buy ranks, sales to help each how they're out. How is that a profitable business model? It's very obviously not a business. It's a pyramid scheme, defined as a form of investment in which each paying participant recruits to further participants, with returns being given to early participants using money contributed by later ones. Yep. It's similar, in fact to a Ponzi scheme, which is named after Charles Ponzi. An Italian American businessman in the nineteen twenties who was taking money from investors with a promise of a high return, but paying earlier investors using the investments from later investors. His scheme ran for about a year before it collapsed, costing investors twenty million dollars. That's a cool two hundred and fifty million in today's currency. But that's nothing compared to Bernie Madoff, who was arrested in two thousand and eight for running a Ponzi scheme that cost investors and estimated sixty five billion. Wow. Yeah, but made off in Ponzi. We're supposedly selling stocks. Roberto was selling mems and moldy wet ass ripped leggings. But the money making aspect is similar, and this is where the pyramid aspect comes in. The boutique kept itself afloat. You know, sell five thousand dollars and I'd buy five thousand dollars with the stuff. It was like seventy eight thousand dollars I had bought and I had sold eighty three. That's only five grand in the green, and that doesn't include any expenses. So I made nothing. All of my money came from my bonuses, right from the pyramid scheme. But Roberta, she's one of the lucky ones. She got in relatively early, placed her proverbial brick near the top of the pyramid, and by hustling and sheer gumption, she actually made a profit. I probably made like sixty thousand dollars twenty months something like that, like forty dollars a year, which is less than I was picking at the salon. But a vast majority of those who sold Lulu Row don't come close to that figure. And how do we know that because their income disclosure is on their website. It's required due to appending pawsuit against them filed by the State of Washington, which accuses Lula Roe of being a what a pyramid scheme and looking through their numbers, it's not good. Yeah. According to the chart, over of distributors did not receive any money from the leadership compensation plan, and the scant few individuals that did see revenue only averaged eight thousand, five and sixty dollars per year a pittance. Yeah. Could you imagine going to work for a company and on their website it actually says that you have a chance of making nothing and chance of losing money astounding. So we're I had given years of her life to selling Deane and Mark's clothing. And as we mentioned, she was one of the lucky ones in Lulu Row or an m l Lambs in general, because she was earning money, but it came at a cost. And I was consumed even eleven o'clock at night. Do you have any teethy leggings? Do you have any large Carly's? I was irritable all the time. I was upset, stressed, angry, always sleep deprived, too much stuff to do, not enough time to do it. I remember in the beginning I get the box. I could not wait. At the end, I would have stacks of boxes sitting in the entryway of the house. They'd sit for days. Towards the end, the boxes for crap, and I said I could sell within twenty four hours. The opposite was true. Towards the end, I could sell ten percent. Maybe they would say, your inventory isn't stale, you are why are you getting more customers? My children were like, Mom, can we please go swimming? It's ninety five degrees outside and we're so hot, And I'd be like, I've got a photograph fifty more things and then we can go swimming. And I'd be like, who am I? I'm yelling at my children because they're hot and they want to go swimming, watching my husband be like, is this worth it? My mental health is off the rails. I couldn't even look myself in the mirror because I knew that I had to lie and do horrible, deceitful tactics to survive. But despite all this, she stayed hustling. I didn't want to admit that there was a failure within this company that I had fought so hard to be a part of, and I didn't want to admit that I was wrong. I wasn't ready. I remember sitting down and being like, I just need a break. I'm gonna watch me some Leah Remany Scientology Aftermath had just come back on, and I sat down and it was like a Survivor episode. This is not the life that I want to live. I wanted to end my life. Some people it takes a year. Some people it takes ten years of just peeling that onion of how you were manipulated and made to think, thank you Leah for saving my life. But it was a Survivor episode and every single person was talking. I had an example. I was like, Lula did that to me too. And I remember looking at my husband and he's like, why are you crying? And I was like, I'm in a cult, I'm in a cold I'm experiencing cult tactics, cult behavior, could indoctrination, cult abuses, and I said, I have to get out now. So the next day she calls the San Diego lady who initially got her in. We had like a forty five minute conversation, and I remember crying and I was like, I can't do this. It's changing who I am and it's not worth it. The woman heard her concerns, but then responded with a reminder from her past. Well, Roberta, I sat there with you in that inspired tour and we held hands and we told each other are wise and you cried and you said you were doing this for your kids. I don't understand why you would leave if you really want this for your kids. So they go after your why the same thing that you used to get in and it's very manipulative. And then as soon as I got home, I was like, dear everyone, I am done. The end sent She sent this message to her group via Facebook that included both her uplines and her down lines. I could feel the tangles at about fifteen minutes of freedom before like the text messages started rolling in, and the voice mails and the phone calls and the face times and how I didn't know you were leaving. Oh my god, why is there something I could do? But of course it didn't take long for them to shun her cults. If you leave, d N tells people to block you. That comes straight from Dan. Oh you don't have money, We can help you make money. Oh you don't have any friends. You're gonna have a team full of sisters. But the second you leave, bye bye, sisters block. Oh my god, she's such a bit. Of course, she's a failure. It's incredibly colzy. Now Roberta had moments to herself and her family. She could take her kids swimming and without all the constraints of taking pictures of pants and shipping shawls. She had the time to read blogs about m l m s and to talk to others who had left theirs, and she learned that Lulu was just a pebble in a very large and scummy pond. Lularo was the baby MLM cult inside the big MLM cult, and so was am Wee, and so was Arbon, and so was it Works, and so was Mo Dair and so was all of them and shake Lee and Miranda and Otara and Lioness and by Solace. You made that up, but it would be the most fitting. It would. It's like that kid in the neighborhood who's trick or treating at your house and he's going into your driveway and he's changing gutfits and he's going and ringing the doorbell again. It's the same. The only thing that changes at the company's names, the victims and the fucking ship they're selling. But Roberta did miss the community she found while in lu lu ro So she joined another group, and it's an anti Luuro group. Lots of survivors. We all have this trauma bond of like we all thought this was great, we all got fucked. They share experiences and commiserate about the important questions of life, like did anybody else get stinky? Liking hundreds of comments? Oh I had this one that smelled like death. It was so bad I just had to throw him away. Anybody get wet? Ones. Oh my god, I got wet once I got what was I got a whole box full of wet ones. One time, one wise sage even had the answer to the age old questions of why were the leggings wet? She goes, I went to the Luluro head office to pick up something, and there's all these metal containers with blue tarps over them, like, and I thought it was really weird. So I just started taking pictures and it was the inventory sitting outside in California. It's the desert, and the desert gets very cold at night, and we wake up to do on everything, and that do just soaked into those pants for days and days and days. And then another woman had the key to the other plaguing riddle, she goes, But I know why your stuff might smell like dead rats. It used to be my job and my boyfriend's job in the morning to go out to those big metal cages. They have the tarp on top because the holes in the cages or a couple inches square, right, She's like, we would have to pull out all the dead rats and possums that would have gotten inside that night when cold, that couldn't get out and died and at this point I laughed. At this point, I'm like, Okay, of course you pulled dead rats out of the leggings. Of course you did. That makes so much sense. We get stories like that all the time, but mostly these individuals keep their stories within x MLM or groups. There's not a lot of people in MLMs that are willing to speak out one They think they're stupid. They're like, I'm never going to tell anybody that was scammed. We have to make it okay to say I was hurt and not come back with well, you were stupid and you deserved it. We have to stop shaming victims because that's not okay. Of course I made a stupid decision with bad information, but there's nobody in this world that hasn't made a bad decision with that information. If you're a victim of anything, you're a victim. The lack of compassion and empathy in the anti Amalim community was shocking to me. It was devastating. It makes you not want to speak out. And this is a problem with any cultic or abus behavior. People not wanting to speak out, admit they were wrong, admit they were taking advantage of and the same is true for victims of sexual abuse. The way rapists and sex predators continue to get away with their behavior is to instill fear in their victims. Sadly, many of the threats are financially based, and unfortunately the predators often have the money to keep their victims silent. Yeah, Harvey, we're talking to you. So just how does the cycle end? We don't exactly know, but we think it starts with one brave individual at a time willing to risk retribution, paving the way for others to feel emboldened to do the same. And when you don't speak out and share your experiences, no one can learn from your mistakes. And m Limp survived that way, and m l ms look like a business, and a business can't be a cult. I'm selling something, Roberta, and then I'm making money when I sell it. That's not a cult. I'm like sure, cool, Yeah, your cult sells stuff. Look, we're fine with people starting businesses, and we're fine with business founders making millions of dollars for generating a wanted service or product and distributing it in a proper manner. But what burns my ass is when you don't pay your employees living wages, and m l ms do this. They prey upon the vulnerability, the labor and the dreams of want to be entrepreneurs who toil for no wages to sell their shitty product, all on the false promise of easy money and independence. And people just keep chasing the dream, listening to tales of the large revenue being made by the top one percent and hoping that they too can get there. And it's tiring. And that's why Roberta now has a mission and she's not hawking horrific leggings, but she's doling out knowledge. I will never stop telling people that this is a fucking cult, and I will make up my life's work to get out as many people from Lulua as possible. So she started a podcast called Life After MLM. It's informative and helps people. I have a lot of people that are MLMs that listen. I know they listen because they email me later when they leave they say, I listened to your podcast for six months and in the beginning I hated your guts. I thought you were so stupid and you're so bitter, and then you talked about my MLM and I was like, oh, my God, and now I love you and you saved my life and I'm out of my m LM now because of your podcast. I wish I found you a year ago, because now I'm in debt and I have a garage full ellipstick and they're going, oh my god, it is a cult. I wasn't a cult. How did I get in a cult? Very slowly? As how very slowly, exactly the same way everyone gets manipulated into cult San Roberta. She took that same passion for selling and community and she now uses it to better the lives of victims and to keep people from jumping back into this world of MLMs. It feels like a calling. It feels like I had to join Lularo and go through all of that so that I could help others not have to do that. And today she's kicking names and taken as she's actually doing fantastic today. To be able to live myself in the mirror and be proud of who I am and to love myself, I wasn't there four years ago, and I left Lularo. Roberta was an absolute pleasure to have on the show. She was a perfect guest to answer many of the questions we get our MLM's cults. Well, folks, I think you now have your answer. I reached out to her after seeing the Lula Rich doc on Amazon because I distinctly remember she was the only person in the series to verbalize this is a fucking cult or something to that effect. She may not have dropped the F bomb, but after she said that, I was like her, that's who I want to be on our show, and she just so happened to be able to join in studio for the interview. It was all meant to be. And if you want to hear more about Roberta and other crazy MLM's, you should totally check out Roberta's podcast Life After MLM. There is a link in the show notes. There is also a link to our Instagram so you can see our fantastic photos of Liz and I in this sexy leggings. We loved this episode and we hope that it helps people who are considering an MLM life. Just don't Next week we'll be back with another great story. Everybody consider helping us, Yes, help us, help you, helping us, helping you? You get it. Yeah, every contribution helps us, help you, helping us. Who are we helping? I forgot I've lost it. Just go to our website, Guys, was I in a call dot com? And you'll get more information? There was I in a call to story produced and written by this guy Tyler, Sexy Leggings and LIZAYACUZI. That's Iacuzy with two zis because she puts me to sleep. These leggings that on keep everyone awake. Executive producer is Maya Cole Howard. Supervising producer is Ari Basil. Audio editor and engineer is Chandler. Mains publicists Lauren Dutton Breen, and our studio engineer is Clay Hillenburg. Welcome to the team, Clay. And our fan of the week is Kelly Branch from Missouri, who said on Twitter that our podcast is a good disconnect from the education world. Yep, she's a teacher. Thank you, Kelly Branch. And Kelly, if you want my leggings, dm me, I'll give them to you. Just don't wear them to school because they will rip and show your ass and then you'll be the coolest teacher around. All right, let's never take these off again. Thank you.