What is a Direct or Platinum? Of all the distributors, you probably

• are the hardest working
• get the least sleep
• drive the most miles
• spend the least time with your family
• have big expenses to support your "business"
• work hardest to present yourself as "successful"
• still have a full-time job, and if you're married both of you probably work full time
• are the most "plugged in" or "core." You buy and listen to the most tapes, read the most books, attend tons of functions.
• a member of an elite group -- less than 1% -- who has achieved this level
• When you pay your hard-earned dollars to attend a major function, you have the "privilege" of helping your upline's bottom line profit on the function by acting as unpaid ticket takers, setup crew, door guards, errand runners, drivers, hosts and hostesses.
• have to be the most positive, the most upbeat, the most cheerful
• persuade prospects and new recruits that you represent the "heart" of the "business"
• have to convince your downline and your prospects that you're making good money from Amway

Behind the cheerful facade, though, what's the reality? The majority of you are hemorrhaging financially. Your expenses far outstrip your bonuses. You're deeply in debt on credit cards, the bank owns your car(s), and yet the "system" keeps encouraging you to buy, buy, buy symbols of affluence to show your group how "successful" you are. You divert money earned from your job or traditional business to give the impression that you're achieving "financial success" from Amway. If you qualified as a Direct last year, you've probably slipped back and won't requalify this year, because the numbers are stacked against you.

Some typical situations that I'm familiar with: a gold direct with a credit card debt of $80,000 and no prospect of paying it off; a PSDD who lost his house when he couldn't meet the mortgage payments, lost three cars, lost equipment needed for his traditional business, and had to pawn diamond rings and other jewelry just to survive; another PSDD who, after ten years of involvement, lost $200,000, all their savings, all of their retirement, all of their mutual funds, and are now over $100,000 in debt with no prospect of paying it off anytime soon.

As IRS Tax Court cases are becoming easier to find, we are seeing case after case of enormous losses by people who are supposed to be making money. What's the problem here?

The problem is that you are killing yourselves to "support" your upline's "system" and to maintain the facade of "success" for your downline. You are the fulcrum for the lever, balancing new recruits at one end and carrying the weight of your diamonds on the other. The diamonds are making obscene amounts of money from selling the "system," and you, the directs and platinums, are the ones who are paying the biggest price.

You are the people who primarily work with the new recruits, spending the most time, and the most money with them. Do you know that your Diamond makes a lot more off their involvement in the "system" than you do, or ever will? If you can't afford this very expensive hobby called "Amway" any more, you can take a lot of people with you when you go.

You get most of the people to the functions, thereby providing your diamonds with about one third of their annual income.

You are on the front lines promoting the tapes and books, thereby providing your diamonds with most of the remainder of their income. They will earn more money off each dollar spent in "tools" in your group than you ever will! "The people who do the work make the money" is a lie.

And what are you getting in return? Promises for the future that don't materialize (but, while your "success" is due to the "system," any "failure" is strictly your own fault because somehow you didn't master the mystical formula). Debt and more debt. The "responsibility" to "never send negative downline (or crossline)." You probably actually believe that the other directs you share the stage with at monthly seminar & rally are making money, because you're all so good at keeping up appearances! I've got news for you -- if you all told each other the truth, the diamonds who are riding on your backs might have to start looking at the want ads!

So -- you're not making a profit. But at least you've got some tax writeoffs, right? We are seeing people who took their upline's advice about how to file their tax returns, and found out that their upline and the IRS disagreed. Did you know that, if you go into an IRS audit and you can't show that your "investments" in the "system" increased retail sales, those deductions will be disallowed?

How long will you keep blindly believing what your diamond tells you? How deeply are you willing to go into debt to support his lavish lifestyle? How severely are you going to compromise your ethics by enticing people into failure system masquerading as a "success system"?

Is it working for you?