Opportunity Cost

Anna thought that she had found a home among the spiritually-minded community in Enagic and their Kangen ionizers, what she found instead were empty promises, debt and culty practices. I sit down with Anna 1:1 to talk about her experience in Enagic.

Thanks for listening. Email us at bloww.studio@gmail.com and follow us at @oppcostpod on Instagram & TikTok.

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We kick off a round of bonus full interview episodes with the lovely Chrystal. When she joined Amway on an invitation from her coworker, Chrystal had no idea how much of her life would eventually be consumed by it. Through ever-growing fees paid and conferences attended, Chrystal never entirely lost her ability to see clearly through the merry-go-round of motivation pumped out by the organization and its leaders.

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Insurance MLMs have given rise to a new wave of super bros, who are convinced that selling supplemental insurance is how they will make it big. American Income Life is famous among the MLM world, or maybe…infamous. American Income Life reached out to me to see if I would be interested in talking about their life-changing opportunity, so I took them up on it.

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2021 Agent contractor class-action lawsuit
AIL BBB
No ...

Mary Kay Ash spun a tale of female empowerment, and today, is hailed as a feminist icon. Their cream, goop, and makeup has been a fixture in pop culture Americana for decades, but the model it uses to sell products and Mary Kay's culty corporate culture is worth a second glance.

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Mary Kay
Mary Kay Income Disclosure
Pink Truth
KRTV Mary Kay Ash, 1982
Mary Kay Inc., CBS 60 Minutes
The ca...

Arbonne boasts that their products are vegan, non-GMO, and tout their B Corp certification as an extension of their clean ingredient mission. Consultants rave about Arbonne’s healthy living products - while toxic diet culture reigns supreme.  I also sat down with Julie to talk about her climb up the ranks in Arbonne and what happened when her vantage from the top…did not look so pretty.

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Arbonne
Arbonne Inc...

Bomb Party's surprise reveal jewelry has taken TikTok by storm. Thousands of people tune in live every day to watch reps unfurl rings, bracelets, and necklaces that Bomb Party claims are worth up to $1,500. Peering through the haze of bath bomb fizz and glitter, things at Bomb Party may not be so sparkly after all.

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Bomb Party
Dopamine Reward Prediction Error by Wolfram Schultz, MD
Proft margins on...

Seekers looking for community outside of traditional religion might find themselves in the New Age movement. These groups are not free from the grip of MLMs and the wild health claims made about their products. Enagic distributors claim to have the secret to long-lasting health in their Kangen water ionizers. I also speak with Anna about her time in Enagic, and the MLM distributor to QAnon pipeline.

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Enagic
Enagic In...

In the premiere episode, we start at the logical place: the beginning. After Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos founded Amway, the world - and our political sphere - was never the same. The jury is out on whether that’s for the better…or worse. I also speak with Chrystal, a former Independent Business Owner with Amway and member of the motivational organization, Leadership Team Development (LTD).

Sources:
Amway
Amway Income Dis...

How did multi-level marketing become a $186B industry? What does it mean to lose your identity and find it somewhere else? Are distributors who build teams of hundreds underneath them victims? Or are they villains?

Maybe the answer to these questions is somewhere in the middle.  Who we are determines what motivates us, how we make decisions, and who we trust. This includes when someone we know or don’t know tells us we can...