I've been on the job search for six months. I've got another few months to go before graduating with my Bachelor of Science in Health Service Administration. I also am interning soon.
I'm honestly feeling super discouraged. I put in 250 applications for an internship and got two interviews. I got a lot of push back from one, not because they didn't think I was a good candidate but because the commute is a bitch from where I am.
I've now put in over 200 applications for entry level positions that I'm qualified for. I have previous experience as a GM and so far I've gotten one single interview and it was for a MLM commission only sales job. Plus it's selling Health Insurance through United and i ethically can't support that company after what they did to me.
So what can I do? I have my Scientific Workforce Prep certifications, and easily can go get a degree in laboratory science.
Now one thing to understand is that Florida is in a recession right now. There's few jobs and those in my fiels require masters degree or a RN degree. I tried to go to nursing school but couldn't get in with a 3.9 GPA.
What do I do. I've had professionals look over my resume and cover letters and they all say they look good.

I am making this post to warn others about a "company" called Galvanized Legacy (really a cover for Amway). Very similar story to others in the antiMLM thread, but wanted to specifically call this out in Dallas. This happened in May 2024.
I was approached by a guy named David around my age (25-30yo) that I have never seen before the LA Signature Club off Haskell in Dallas West Village area. He asked something about my work out technique and would not stop yapping about mentorship and financial freedom, but would NEVER say the name of the company, or give me the website - nothing! He put on the nice guy, Christian family man act and we exchanged numbers. He texted me a few hours later that afternoon and asked to set up a call to talk more about his "mentorship" thing. It was all very vague and "goal oriented" "family oriented" "time is money" BS without any mention of the business model or how it works for the first couple of calls we had.
I'm not a moron - knew this guy was a scam artist the second he mentioned "you need to meet my mentor, her name is Tali". Our first phone call was a sales ploy to get me to talk the whole time (aka gets the person he's talking with to like him) where he showed me five slides on a PPT deck made by a 5th grader with no company title or information other than fake numbers of "The Potential" and generic online products of "Our Market" like skin care, cosmetics, body care (which of course is a SATURATED market with little to no ROI) but he claimed these lines were chosen as they are "recession proof" - HA!
At the end of our first call - David assigned me to read "Business of the 21st Century" written by Robert T. Kiyosaki (2b in debt) about how great Networking Marketing is... lol which is the 2024 term for MLM/Pyramid Scheme. "You would make 94% off the product, I would make 6%" is what he told me.... but not once was I shown any product website or annual distribution statement.
I couldn't help myself but play along all the way through until after the 2nd call haha. He called the week after our first call and asked how I liked the book and if I wanted to come meet his mentor and team from 8-9pm next week on Tuesday, May 14th 2024 by the galleria (would not give me a direct location/address at this point), but couldn't bring it to call him out over the phone because I'm just too nice of a guy I guess/hate confrontation in general so I try to avoid if I can... So after we chatted for about 10 min, I texted and asked for a product website and annual distribution statement for the 2nd time. He replied with "Haha okay don't come then".
So I blocked his number and decided to take the high road to post to Reddit instead lol. Stay far far away from these people and their pyramid scheme "company" called Galvanized Legacy (aka a cover for Amway). Especially if you live in Dallas, The Woodlands, or any surrounding areas in Texas!
The End hahaha

I am making this post to warn others about a "company" called Galvanized Legacy (really a cover for Amway). Very similar story to others in the antiMLM thread, but wanted to specifically call this out in Dallas. This happened in May 2024.
I was approached by a guy named David around my age (25-30yo) that I have never seen before the LA Signature Club off Haskell in Dallas West Village area. He asked something about my work out technique and would not stop yapping about mentorship and financial freedom, but would NEVER say the name of the company, or give me the website - nothing! He put on the nice guy, Christian family man act and we exchanged numbers. He texted me a few hours later that afternoon and asked to set up a call to talk more about his "mentorship" thing. It was all very vague and "goal oriented" "family oriented" "time is money" BS without any mention of the business model or how it works for the first couple of calls we had.
I'm not a moron - knew this guy was a scam artist the second he mentioned "you need to meet my mentor, she's amazing". Our first phone call was a sales ploy to get me to talk the whole time (aka gets the person he's talking with to like him) where he showed me five slides on a PPT deck made by a 5th grader with no company title or information other than fake numbers of "The Potential" and generic online products of "Our Market" like skin care, cosmetics, body care (which of course is a SATURATED market with little to no ROI) but he claimed these lines were chosen as they are "recession proof" - HA!
At the end of our first call - this guy assigned me to read "Business of the 21st Century" written by a guy who is currently 2b in debt about how great Networking Marketing is... lol which is the 2024 term for MLM/Pyramid Scheme. "You would make 94% off the product, I would make 6%" is what he told me.... but not once was I shown any product website or annual distribution statement.
I couldn't help myself but play along all the way through until after the 2nd call haha. He called the week after our first call and asked how I liked the book and if I wanted to come meet his mentor and team from 8-9pm next week on Tuesday, May 14th 2024 by the galleria (would not give me a direct location/address at this point), but couldn't bring it to call him out over the phone because I'm just too nice of a guy I guess/hate confrontation in general so I try to avoid if I can... So after we chatted for about 10 min, I texted and asked for a product website and annual distribution statement for the 2nd time. He replied with "Haha okay don't come then".
So I blocked his number and decided to take the high road to post to Reddit instead lol. Stay far far away from these people and their pyramid scheme "company" called Galvanized Legacy (aka a cover for Amway). Especially if you live in Dallas, The Woodlands, or any surrounding areas in Texas!

I previously shared portfolio updates in the Value Stock Ideas thread. I decided to post it here this time because I see a lot of people expressing FOMO for not investing into big tech, especially the companies influenced by AI. So I wanted to give you another perspective: You don't need big tech for big gains. Just keep value investing.
+14.00% YTD. +51.00% over the past 2 years since I started value investing on a fairly diversified (mostly mid/small cap) portfolio. The only big tech I held during that time was META, but I sold it too soon. HPQ too, but at a loss. Considering the Mag 7 were responsible for for 92% of market gains in 2023, I would have to be unbelievably lucky to get these returns on a diversified portfolio, or value investing still works.
Here's my current portfolio
Most of my stock picks revolve around the company financials and how it fits into my system. However, there's also a story element to my decisions. I won't get into the financials, but I'll share some brief thoughts about each position. Maybe you'll find a company worth looking into here.

• NXST (20.00%)

Reason it's undervalued: Cord-cutting, large debt.
My reasoning for investing: It's election year and this will increase revenue significantly (this year's election should be especially interesting). News will always be popular, especially local news.

• UVE (15.75%)

Reason it's undervalued: Property and casualty insurance in Florida. Florida has the highest rate of fraudulent insurance cases, and some of the highest natural disasters. This has driven many insurers to exit Florida entirely or even go bankrupt, and is the reason Florida has such high property insurance costs.
My reasoning for investing: The above is true. So what's the solution? A recent bill has been passed in Florida that aims to reduce fraud, which is expected to bring more insurers back to Florida, thus increasing competition, but also reducing risk for these insurers. UVE has been around since 1990. They're not going anywhere.
I'm sure there's been some speculation that insurers would be more heavily regulated in Florida to bring insurance costs down to earth, but the solution can't be to go after the insurance companies as it will only cause more to exit the state. The solution has to be to aid them against fraud.

• BWMX (15.75%)

Reason it's undervalued: They basically sell home products aimed towards the middle-upper class in a online or paper catalogue form. And it's a multi-level-marketing business. Sounds terrible, right?
My reasoning for investing: I know, this type of business wouldn't work in the US because of businesses like Amazon. But much of the 40+ or 50+ generation in Mexico doesn't use Amazon, so it works there. And MLM works well in Mexico, because people are often looking for alternative sources of income. Betterware are experts in MLMs, and they recently made an acquisition of another MLM which they're really turning around.

• BTI (9.75%)

Reason it's undervalued: Cigarette sales are on a decline. Everybody is aware of this.
My reasoning for investing: Cigarettes are on a decline, yes, but at a snails-pace. From 2019 to 2023 BTI cigarette sales have declined only about 3%. Meanwhile, alternative tobacco products like vaping have increased substantially. I believe the alternative tobacco products will not only replace lost cigarette revenue, but cause overall revenue to grow - at a snails pace, but still, they will grow. (Example: BTI Vapour products had 401mil in sales in 2019, and now it's at 1802mil).

• CROX (8.50%)

Reason it's undervalued: It's a fad! The fashion industry is risky. Fads come and go! And the bad Heydude acquisition.
My reasoning for investing: I don't believe it's a fad, at least in the medium term. There's a lot of potential for growth outside of the US. And talk to any teacher in the US and they will tell you how many of their students wear Crocs. I expect 15%+ average yearly revenue growth. They have yet to turn Heydude into a fruitful investment, but there's hope. As a marketer I can say that Crocs had one of the most impressive marketing campaigns during covid.

• STLA (8.50%)

Reason it's undervalued: It's common knowledge that non-electric vehicles are not the future. STLA doesn't posses great car brands, aside from Jeep. And car manufacturing is expected to slow down.
My reasoning for investing: They're actually investing heavily into EVs. Car manufacturing has been doing surprisingly well. Even if the industry is expected to slow down, I believe based on the company's financials it's so undervalued that it justifies a 'buy'.

• ACGL (7.25%)

Needs more research. But they posses a strong and diversified investment portfolio. This company has historically done well during downturns. And with higher rates, insurance companies are doing quite well.

• VLO (7.25%)

I previously held PBR (Brazilian oil) from $10 to $15.50, and I sold it due to concerns about China's economic slowdown (about 1/3 of PBR's revenue comes from China). So I picked up VLO, which is American oil. I'm not well versed in oil, but based on the financials, I believe it's a buy.

• TUI (3.00%)

Reason it's undervalued: It's a travel service company, and the stock has not recovered since covid lockdowns.
My reasoning for investing: Although the stock price hasn't recovered since lockdowns, the company's revenue has. Which baffles me! It's priced as if we're still in lockdowns. The share dilution is concerning. However, my girlfriend works at a travel booking company, and she says that TUI brings in a ton of business. It's currently trading at around 2.78 P/FCF with cash from operations smoothed out.

• PRG (2.25%)

Reason it's undervalued: They lease furniture, and offer loans for e-commerce products. If the US economy goes into a recession, subprime loans will likely see enormous defaults.
My reasoning for investing: There's risk during downturns, but the company has been around since 1955. They survived bad recessions. E-commerce sales are doing well right now, and I don't believe we're headed for a recession. This is one of my more bullish plays.

• IAU (2.00%)

As interest rates lower, gold usually does well. And like BTI and ACGL, it does well enough during downturns, which adds to my hedges against my bullish positions.
Positions I recently exited: ALSN, HPQ, PAGS, CI, RMAX.
Note: My portfolio is quite fluid. It has a high turnover rate, especially for middle-bottom positions. When a holding appreciates a certain amount, I sell, then I buy one of the next companies on my watch list. Similar to how Burry does it.

I'm currently at a career crossroads and need some guidance: About Me I'm a 3 YOE Salesforce DevelopeAdmin! I like my job I like to architect, code, help with analysis, and generally solve problems. I have a PhD in a STEM field and have good experience with statistics (using multiple platforms (R,SAS,SPSS, excel) HLM,MLM,ULM, and had just started Bayesian when left Academia). I'm highly motivated and relatively intelligent. Meaning, I'm confident that I can learn and adapt to most things. Currently, I make just over 140k/yr at a stable companies in-house Salesforce DevelopeAdmin. I live in a very HCOL area with a family, so this money only goes so far. Option 1: A friend of mine has a startup and is offering to make me a Senior Salesforce Architect for (~280k/yr). Getting some experience with that title is a little more than tempting as it would slingshot my career trajectory (yes, I would learn literally everything about this and get all the additional certs so after ~2yrs my experience somewhat align with the title), but I fear it would lock me into the SFDC platform. Option 2: My current job is offering to make me a Data Scientist that does some SFDC dev. Since I've proven myself in the org and I have mentioned my desire to get experience outside the Salesforce Platform. I'm not sure about the pay increase if there is one, but upon accepting I will definitely request a raise. I'm not sure which is my correct path. What does reddit think? ___________ Data Science Pros -I get some applicability with my PhD. This will help set me apart going forward. -Stability. My company is near recession proof. -I get to learn new things and apply stats, math and code. I'd push myself to learn more of the Engineering and ML side. - Get to learn Python and use more platforms (PowerBI, Tableau and Quicksight). -I'll have more diversified experience. So future employment will be pretty open ended. Cons -Skipping an opportunity to make substantially more money -Data Science seems to be a very easy field to get into and anyone with a bootcamp or a MS year degree can get into it. I'm afraid that this accessibility would saturate the job market and possibly make it difficult to stand out, even with a PhD The same can be said with Salesforce Admins, but taking the other job would take me out of immediate competition with people early on in the Salesforce path. -This option might leave me as a "Jack of all trades master of none" scenario for a few years. Salesforce Architect Pros -I can get the Salesforce Architect title, I get experience with it. It'll give me the opportunity to literally get Every Cert so my experience will match my credentials. -A lot more money and possible equity. CONS -It's a startup sooo...stability. Much of the additional money I'll make I'd have to sock away in the possibility that the startup dies. -If the startup dies and I haven't gotten the additional Certs to match the title by the time that happens...I'm in trouble. -I don't like being trapped in the SFDC environment. I think SFDC development is "lesser than" more traditional SWEs. -Current/future employability is directly related to Salesforce org use. So I'm reliant on a 3rd party company. -AI, I'm afraid that both career tracks are vulnerable to AI (but honestly in 10 - 15 years what isn't). I'm particularly worried about this with Salesforce. Specifically, because Salesforce is a large profit driven Corporation that is trying to drive it's CRM adoption and as a major cost related to Salesforce usage use is the cost related to the human element (implementation, feature creation, etc), so I'd expect many admin/developer tasks, functions, and employment opportunities to disappear the moment Salesforce effectively implements "The New AI Support Onboarding/Admin/Dev/Architect/Whatever". Again, I don't expect this to happen for some time (10-15yrs), but it will occur and I'm afraid I'll be too deep into the platform for my career to react at that time.
TLDR: Experienced SFDC dev has chance to move to Salesforce Architect at a startup vs move to Data Science at current org. Which career path should I take?
Thanks
​

Back in the mid-1990s, while I was home from college during spring recess, a friend from high school invited me to a sales pitch for a MLM scheme. This friend of mine was invited to it by a friend of his, with whom he worked at Costco.
The product was pre-paid phone cards (this was before cell phones were everywhere). It didn't take me long to figure out something was wrong, and I had a noticeable sour look on my face. The Costco friend (a real moron - future NYPD officer - so yeah a real knucklehead) asks me, "Allen, what's the matter? Why don't you want to buy in?" I said, "At what point, are we actually selling the phone cards directly to anyone?" Let's just say I made a few enemies quickly.
Happy New Year, folks!

I will say that I passed all of my six classes with A's and B's surprisingly, especially with the fact that I hated BUS 351 (Business Analytics) and ST 307 (SAS programming) so much. I will say that I have only one class left to complete next semester so I can graduate. Those classes now made me want to avoid jobs that have a heavy emphasis on data science such as marketing analytics. Unfortunately, I will admit that I do not look forward to graduating at the same time as I didn't have much time in the year 2023 to make the best of campus life as I was so incredibly busy with classes and the job I currently have. I will make the best of it this upcoming year. However, I am not looking forward to the job market this upcoming year with the possibility of a small recession. For my major in marketing, the job market isn't too great as I now realize that it is basically an oversaturated degree at this time and a lot of companies are basically on a hiring freeze or they want only highly experienced people. I am just trying to get jobs within my major in the RDU area and I did try LinkedIn, but it is like the companies that are hiring want people with thorough experience. I did consider the possibility of getting an MBA to make myself more considered for a job, but I was basically deterred by my professors from doing it due to lack of experience. Thankfully, I see myself graduating with roughly eight grand in student debt, which is not bad compared to other amounts I have heard. It is worse with the fact that I am basically being forced to buy a new car due to my family and the millage on it. Because of this, I see my bank account being drained and I see me living paycheck to paycheck. It is not like I will be traveling either as I pretty much won't have any money due to student debt, higher car insurance, and possibly a car payment on top of other bills. I just only see myself driving to work in it and not traveling anywhere, unfortunately. However, I now see myself working as a district manager working shitty hours for a franchise like Aldi, Publix, or Harris Teeter starting as a cashier to working in management with shitty hours. It is also worse that I am also being targeted by MLM schemes like Aptiv and Amway already so it's not like I have a choice at this point. I did consider the military as an option, but I would highly be rejected due to the mental health issues I have especially if they got hold of the stuff I told my therapist. I really do not look forward to next year.

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Hi everyone, I don’t know if this is really proper forum and I have read the FAQs, but am posting in the hopes that a subset of you will be subject experts in the field and can offer good advice.
My wife and I started our 5 year old boy in a new Taekwondo school which was conveniently located near our house 4 months ago. Our son is polite and friendly, shares and typically plays well. We enrolled him because he lacks focus, attention, and direction. He was one of the first students at the school. It was 3 days a week for 45 minutes and cost around $120/month. We noticed almost overnight results with being more attentive to us, answering immediately, and completing tasks we asked him to.
Then the instructor, a 60ish Korean gentleman with 6th degree black belt, announced that they were opening an after school program. The bus conveniently drops kids off at his school. After the instructor’s wife failed to sell my wife her Melaleuca (an MLM) products, she then started pitching the after school program for $350/month. It’s 5 days a week.
He touts his school as a form of behavioral modification which can benefit ADHD. While he makes no medical claims, he definitely implies it.
Here are my concerns:

1. My kindergartener is on the bus to school at 7 am and only gets home around 5:30. That’s a long day for a 5 year old.
   
2. The after school program has 5-12 year olds, none of whom have any prior Taekwondo experience. There is only one instructor and his wife at the desk.
   
3. We have noticed a LOT of “free play” when we drop in - around 15 kids whacking each other with sparring pads and rubber balls while the instructor is focusing on a couple kids at a time.
   
4. We have started getting some negative feedback from school. Our son hit another kid at recess and called a girl ugly last week. We don’t behave or talk like that at home. I’m not naive and know the way the world works, but I wonder if some of this behavior stems from 6th graders and kindergarteners having free play together.
   
5. Our bus driver told us confidentially that when the after school program opened, her bus was assigned to it, and that she does not like this new group of kids because they are very “loud.” I think she’s telling us they are troublemaker kids.
   
6. Our son had to take a dump, got confused, and went into the changing room instead of the bathroom. Apparently he REALLY needed to go because he took a dump on the floor. When I came to pick him up around 5 pm. It was messy. He was offered zero assistance and I found him in the room between the instruction room and changing room naked from the waist down. The instructor had handed him a pack of wet wipes. No effort was made to take him to the actual bathroom. He told me he had been standing there the entire class. This is a strip mall with full glass windows and he was standing there naked for who knows how long with people walking by.
   
7. Our son came home with a bible from Taekwondo. I did some digging and found out that several students are sponsored by their churches. I’m all for religion but I find this a bit odd.
   
8. My son regularly comes home with bruises on his face. The ones on his chin from Friday I believe are from the big kids dragging him on his face during free play.
   

Is any of this normal? I feel like we somehow got roped in to a new school which is a collection of troubled kids. We live out in the country and with zero competition this would be a good business model I suppose.
Sorry so long, I’m just at a loss for if I’m being too protective or if this whole thing is terrible.

Sorry, u/Vylemz TL:DR Ben is wrong to say all crypto is a scam, but his book is still enjoyable with its criticisms of crypto's flaws and its portraits of rogues and scammers.
The book Easy Money is well worth reading if you are interested enough to follow this sub, even if you don't agree that crypto as a whole is a scam. Some people might be here to have buttcoiner laughs at the stupidity in the space, but most people here have probably found some value in crypto. My attitude which is probably common here is that crypto itself is not a scam, but it attracts a huge amount of scamming. Having the insane daily news that appears online arranged in a book gives a good perspective on the last few years.
​
Ben entered crypto during the pandemic bull run so his perspective is limited, but he also brings book coverage of crypto beyond the first wave of books that explained bitcoin and the second wave that focused on Ethereum. One example of his limited view is a bet that he made "We came up with a side bet of our own: I bet him dinner at the restaurant of his choosing that Bitcoin would be worth $10,000 a coin or less by the end of 2021. To my mind it was easy money. (p. 22)" So his digging into crypto didn't teach him about the four year cycle. At least this time it was just the check for dinner with a friend.
Then there's the most spectacular example of Ben being a dumbass. He decided to bet against all the fraud in crypto and in pumped up stocks and SPACs.
"Somehow, despite the rampant fraud, I was still losing money. Distracted by all the excitement
of launching a new career as a journalist, I had fallen victim to one of the classic mistakes of
retail investors. I refused to acknowledge that I was wrong on the timing. In short selling,
being wrong as to when a stock plunges is the same as being wrong. There's no consolation
prize for correctly assessing a fraud but betting against it too early. My portfolio of short bets
was, to put it generously, in shambles. I started with $250,000 that summer, by November it was
down to $38,931. While I had bet on other frauds, the main culprit was simple: I had
wagered too much on crypto's collapse too soon, and blinded by my certainty, I nearly lost
it all. By the time I got out of my crypto positions, they were almost worthless. What had been
a lot of money was now very little. To be blunt it was an unmitigated disaster -- the kind
of thing that provokes an uncomfortable conversation with your spouse. (p. 43)."
The point of bitcoin is to get away from all the counterparty risk. The title Easy Money is meant to refer to the easy money policies of the Fed that were a response to the Great Recession of 2008 as well as to the crypto boom.
The book repeatedly says that crypto has no inherent value, but it spends more time talking about the scandals and rogues than the actual cryptocurrencies. It discusses bitcoin and Satoshi, but while Ethereum comes up, Vitalik is never mentioned. "[R]igidity lies at the very foundation of crypto in the form of smart contracts. Remember the first rule of thumb in crypto: Everything is the opposite of what it claims to be. It will shock you to discover smart contracts are, for many purposes, pretty dumb. (142)."
I'll just give a list of bullet points of the criticisms of crypto, many I agree with and often appear in this sub, but that don't really get at the core nature of the ideas of cryptocurrency.

• Tether sucks
• You can't trust CZ Binance
• Crypto is a ponzi, MLM, pyramid scheme. It can even be a "naturally occurring Ponzi" after Robert Schiller (p. 17)
• Bitcoin mining wastes energy and damages the environment
• Marginbois get rekt, particularly when exchanges conveniently shut down during trades. The book mentions a class action lawsuit against Binance for this funded by a crypto equity firm, Liti Capital. Like a true degen, I wondered where I could buy it. Probably not a great idea. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/liti-capital/
• There are very serious problems in El Salvador and with the Bukele government that the bitcoin plans won't really address.
• DeFi is excessively complicated and risky
• Crypto leapt ahead of the usual DC industry suspects in donations and lobbying to politicians.
• The offshore status of exchanges like FTX is a screaming red flag
• Crypto leads to gambling addiction, especially with the levels of leverage that are available in the space that can't be found in traditional markets.
• Long term crypto scammers drain their victims of everything through false relationships, romantic or friendly
• Crypto played a significant role in the March 2023 bank collapses.

​
Ben did get to interview a number of the notorious figures in crypto before their falls. At SXSW he caught Alex Mashinsky.
"Toward the end of our conversation, when the video was off but with audio still rolling,
Mashinsky told me something that made my blood run cold. I asked him how much 'real
money' he thought was in the crypto system. I didn't think he would actually answer the
question but he did.
'Ten to fifteen percent,' Mashinsky said. That's real money -- genuine government-
backed currency -- that's entered the system. 'Everything else is just bubble.' (p. 84)."
Later with Sam Bankman-Fried
" ' . . . yeah in the spring I asked [Mashinsky] how much real money is in crypto and
he said 10 to 15 percent.'
'And by real money, I'm guessing you're saying dollar, or euro, or yuan inflows into
the ecosystem?'
'I didn't need to explain to him what real money is. If I was going to explain it to you,
yes.'
. . . Sam nodded, but argued that the real money in crypto was not wildly different from
where it was in March. (p. 160)"
One great bit of information is that Sam, acolyte of Effective Altruism, was directed to join Jane Street Capital by philosopher William MacAskill himself.
​
I've probably given enough for the people who think Ben is an idiot to reject the book, but maybe there's enough to intrigue others who want to put some perspective on the years since the last bull run.
​
​
​
https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/easy-money_9781419766398/

This gonna be a long one. I'll try to remember to do a TL;DR of it. Graduated College in 2022, Did part time It Support in that College for 3.5 of those 4 years. Never focused on software development because I was also working part time fast food to get by. Because of Covid, couldn't do internships, or really anything. After I graduated, I didn't think about continuing with IT work, because food service paid more. And it still pays more, as I'm now essentially the highest paid kitchen new(ish) employee at the bar for $17.50 an hour.
Problem is, I had a bad roommate for this $1800 a month apartment we'd been sharing, he stopped paying his half after trying to say he was laid of in January. Around March, don't ask me how, still wasn't paying his half, and I found out he quit. So I had kicked him out in April. So even at $17.50, for several months I've been having to use credit, plasma donation, and to survive. I now have a transfer to a single apartment, going next month which is several hundred dollars cheaper. But now, I need a better job to actually claw me out of this hole so that an emergency won't immediately lead to eviction.
Before I even kicked my roommate out, I had been doing Coursera Google Certificates, applying to jods on linkedIn, and checking with google and friends for possible leads. By May, finished all Certificates, had applied to about 100 jobs, researched the big Tech layoff that seems to be a huge reason nobody can find work at all. Best friend in HR unemployed because of layoffs around this time.
In june, had to double my efforts on Indeed and take a break from LinkedIn. I redirected my approach to applying for specifically IT help desk and computer support roles, because I atleast have experience. And also opened myself up to sales, because they were the only ones to give me any interviews. Midway through June, my step-mother found work again. I figured she already had something worked out by now. The panic really starts to settle in. Because I've done only 5 interviews, all for sales, and even though I felt like I had hit every one of them off, I would here nothing back.
So here we are in late July, I've already gone back to LinkedIn from Indeed exhaustion. Even trying Premium for extra kick. But it seems like nothing is happening. Took a week off of work just to apply for new work, and it seems that even the MLM scams on LinkedIn are starting to get ultra pucky.
My stepmother, has 20+ years in this industry. I don't remember the exact titled. The literal VP tech something something for The Ohio State University. She was fuckin UP THERE. Like 2,000 followers/connections on LinkedIn. And it still took her about 3 months to find something else. Honestly was shocking enough just to see her laid off. All the while, Ohio keeps screwing my friend over with unemployment checks. I'm feeling like I have to be grateful for having a job that can't even pay my bills. He has more experience in HR than I do in It. About 5 years and he's still struggling to recuperate.
All this to say, while I only managed to get 5 interviews, they were all for onsite positions near me anyway. I have heard nothing about my applications to remote work. Even when I was the first and/or the only one to apply. In the void of hundreds of my unseen applications, I've had my resume downloaded several dozen times. Nobody reaching out. Optimistic job hunting is now starting to feel like Doom scrolling, and it's literally starting to feel like the military is the ONLY solution left to turn alot of this around, especially with a probable recession coming. I would just get a warehouse job, but they are all on the outskirts, and the van I got was a beat up minivan I bought figuring car prices would skyrocket to the point where I couldn't afford anything(I was right).
I've looked into it all and it seems like hundreds of people have been struggling to find new work for almost a year now. And every month in between. Are we just all stuck? Is there anyway to push through the entry-level hell that seems to be plaguing every sector? What should I be looking at if not LinkedIn or Indeed? Has anyone without experience in Tech landed anything recently? Are there any other recent graduates that can't find a way out of this pit? I've been told by contractors from friends that the market will cool down after summer ends, but this had no real basis.
TL;DR Multiple people with experience around me and including me are suffering to find work after the tech layoff in May. Remote work seems to be impossible to find and on-site only slightly better. Will things continue to spiral?

On his LinkedIn it says he helps people overcome PTSD and ADHD and more using 'neurocoaching.' His PhD is unaccredited, from a spiritual school. It truly feels like a low brow scam from some uneducated guy pretending to be someone he's clearly not.
Am I going crazy? He is not a regulated therapist. He cannot claim to offer services against mental health problems specifically PTSD and ADHD. Is this not a complaint that should go to the licensure board?
In what world should this guy be charging 7K to solve PTSD (even if he is then whatever, but AFAIk he cannot claim or write that?)
Am I crazy here for thinking this is very manipulative, predatory, and what this coach (not therapist - he is not) is doing is way out of line?
I needed help with mental health and PTSD I have been having.
I feel scammed by this guy (not doxxing his name here).
Please let me know if I'm over reacting and if not, where I can get help for this to get my money back?
Selling what appears to be some quasi MLM -
Realized all of his clients are coaches who also coach other coaches and a friend of his whom I checked with claimed that he was in fact coaching this guy for his mindset because his methods did not work and he needed help...
My context: I was (and am) a in a very rough mental health place,
I was the victim of a cyberhack that led to the theft of ~80K and messed me up beyond just the immense financial stress due to the computer intrusion. PTSD symptoms, flashbacks, etc.
Now unemployed currently, lost both of my jobs in Feb (had to get 2 jobs after the hack, worked like crazy to build some savings back up) and job market is rough right now,
having tough time, panic attacks due to the pressure, while trying to apply to grad school.
The field I was working in is super new and now jobs in it barely exist due to the recession and rates so I have to pivot fields entirely again now in this job market. All of this realization I got scammed and lied to by this guy is making me incredibly angry and messing me up furhter.
All of this is driving my mental health really really bad and some days I'm having serious trouble.
I suffered a serious mental health episode during his program (not blaming him for that), and I sought professional emergency help and medication.
This guy sold me 1:1 coaching - 12 sessions for $6800 (!) but I cancelled halfway through after 6 sessions because I became suspicious I had been scammed and several promised terms of the contract were not delivered.
For example call recordings and some other resources were not given. Refund clause in his contract is void due to this as well. Contract says Slack access, many other things. He did do the 1 hour calls but that's it. And the quality was subpar.
I just don't think this was worth over $560 per call...
He was on vacation on some calls, I could not hear him.
He talked about himself and other clients and talked down upon respected clinical therapies and said he has some method that works better but we never really got to it.. it was all generic stuff he kept hashing.
He was not selling therapy or saying he was a psychologist in his contract (his contract makes clear it's not therapy and only coaching)
BUT he did charge me the money before I signed the contract and that was not mentioned on the "sales call" and his LinkedIn says he has a PhD and works on PTSD and ADHD!! -
He had me pay over messenger by just sending my card details and I also paid a deposit via the phone call (it was a sales call and he mentioned he needed to hire someone for sales calls instead of him doing it- another red flag in retrospect).
This has been extra shameful and hurtful given the hack now that I'm out several thousands on top of that hack....
I let him know all of my situation via email and he ignored it all and made fun of me.
He didn’t deliver a lot of what was stated and used deceptive marketing to sell something egregiously priced to someone clearly vulnerable and then pretends like this is normal, gaslighting me.
The issue here is: I thought he was also a licensed therapist...
he has a PhD listed prominently on his LinkedIn and he has logos of all the brands he has worked with (I now think he made them up - he lists JNJ, NYU Stern, Nestle...).
I dug deeper and found out that his PhD is from an unaccredited spiritual 5013c university so it's NOT licensed/accredited and he is NOT a psychologist or therapist but only a life coach...
but the PhD is titled to sound scientific (Psychoneurology) and I believe he's doing it to seem more legit than he is.
I have since found a proper therapist who is legitimate charges much less, with proper regulation and is MUCH better. I just feel so ashamed I fell for this and got scammed and don't know what to do.
Even services like Talkspace or Betterhelp are like $100 a session for actual legitimate psychologist and even psychiatrists...
He refunded me half when I cancelled (gave me $3300 back) but I still don't think that's fair - it still comes out to over $560 per session...
I emailed him several times politely to ask for an additional $1700-2000 back so that the 6 sessions we did he still gets paid out over $300 per session or $1800 total which IMO is fair, no?
Entire thing is icky and gross to take advantage of someone struggling with mental health.
Am I being crazy here?
He ignored my emails and proceeded to instead ridicule me on his social media - didn't mention my name but made it very clear it was about me - he told me to "man up", gaslit me into thinking it should be normal.
Looking back it's clear he preys on people suffering mentally and who don't have the means to pay $6800
He told me several stories bragging almost about how he got someone scraping by to open a credit card to do his program.
I did a chargeback, he then shared my confidential mental health struggles with Amex in the dispute evidence - a creditor - which I find to be insane, if a regulated therapist did that they would lose their license.
I believe his behavior could cause harm to vulnerable individuals - imagine if someone were going through something even more severe...
MY OPTIONS
Not sure what to do outside of reviewing him online.
-Write to BBB? and FTC? (did both)
-Write to the State AG (he is New Jersey)?
-Write to Consumer Affairs of his state and licensure board for Psych since he appears to be practicing regulated therapy?
His contract has an arbitration clause (?) but I am not going to travel from FL to NJ over $3300 nor is that worth suing over... also I don't think that's fair. Can I sue in small claims despite this clause?
Obviously he is doing coaching so he can do it unregulated unlike therapy (since his PhD is fake/unaccredited and he legally cannot call himself a therapist or psychologist but is basically doing that and charging far more than any would).
I don't know if coaches can attempt to treat PTSD and emotional distress, nothing wrong with life coaching I guess, charge whatever the market is willing to pay for you, but don't do predatory marketing or lie about credentials/PhD and then not deliver what's in the contract.
It's fine if some executive mindset coach with an actual client roster of CEOs charges 10k or even more for coaching, but for context I found this guy used to be a fitness trainer just a year back.
His only testimonials are all other coaches that coach other coaches to coach coaches, and I also believe the logos he lists are fake... found a few other of his clients and uncovered that some feel the same way and regret it.
Taken advantage of and brainwashed.
Only after digging did I realize it was a fake unaccredited school. The entire thing is just so disgusting, feel taken advantage of, gaslit, gross.
Am I overreacting here or is my thinking correct that this is gone too far?

This is an MLM which does not seem as popular as the other ones here. Had a meeting with someone having the title of "Ecommerce Analyst". Apparently, he is gonna be my coach and his mentor is a 29 year old retiree.
FYI, I knew it was an MLM 5 minutes into the meeting. I just went along for the fun. After so much pestering about what they actually do, he told me they do something called Network Marketing. According to this guy this is recession and AI proof. Have another meeting next week for fun.
Our zoom meeting expired after 40 min. and this guy said that cant be since he has a pro version of zoom lol. Cant even be bothered to try harder.

There is a lot to this story and I have a lot of resentment towards MLM schemes because of how they target minorities and low-income households. My mom started selling Mary Kay while I was in high school, she was promised many things such as a business and a car. My parents bought a house during the recession for dirt cheap in socal, our mortgage was about 1200 a month. My mom was cleaning offices for her job but she is an illegal immigrant so it is very hard for her to get a decent job. She was roped into Mary Kay and I just wish she listened to my dad about the dangers of a company like this; it stressed out my step-dad and in turn it stressed out everyone in the household. My mom quit her job to pursue Mary kay full time, she even went to Texas for a meeting to pursue her goals. She really wanted to be successful, but that caused me and my family to be eating ramen for dinner and sometimes nothing at all. Her involvement in Mary Kay strained my parents marriage to the point where even today 8 years later there is still lots of resentment in the household. I had sleepless nights so my grades were failing and we ended up losing our home to the bank before my senior year. I moved in with my friend and honestly that was one of the best times of my life because there was no stress. My parents ended up moving into a small room with my little brother in their friends house. They asked me to move in with them to help with bills because they are moving into a rental house. I was paying 600 a month in rent at 18, working full time, and going to community college. COVID happened while I was working at wal-mart and I had to quit school but there was so much anxiety just going to work with everyone freaking out and buying everything they can from the store. I was very suicidal for a couple years, I almost died 3 times from overdosing on drugs. All of our cars we own have more than 200000 miles on each of them, so if our cars break down who knows how our finances will be, my parents are broke every month even though I pay half of our bills. My mom is a nail tech but she isn't getting much business because the economy is terrible right now and my older brother is unresponsible and always needs money even though he has a job and isn't living with us. Our rent in socal is 2100 but we have to pay utilities too, so a mortgage of 1200 sounds like a dream. I got a decent job working in IT for the school district but I am still broke every month trying to help my family. I just wish my mom never discovered Mary Kay, life would've been very different. There is a lot more details I spared but I just needed to vent because I was reading all these horror stories on MLM. I wanted to share my story

The finance wizards talk about leading indicators of economic recession using yield curves, CAPE ratios, Buffet ratios etc… but does anyone have MLM friends who are hurting from sales slowing down?
With people using their CCs these days to just cover daily necessities I can’t imagine any disposable income is available to buy all this garbage?

Question for Vegas Working Moms,
My sector will be undergoing a recession due to layoffs industry-wide & strikes coming up Spring/Summer of this year.
Wanted to see if there were any Moms in Vegas currently making six figures with benefits (which is what I currently make), & if so, what sector are you in? Please omit any responses in the service industry related to front facing customer service positions or MLM (NOTE: If you work in legal, HR, Corporate, etc - your responses are appreciated)... & if you feel open to it, sharing a general job title, but the latter isn't necessary. I'm just trying to get an idea of sectors that I may not have thought of where this is possible. My line of work is pretty demanding (12 hr days 5 days a week) so I'm open to still putting in the same amount of hours. For context, I'm a Single Mom with an almost one year old son, baby daddy isn't in the picture financially or physically.
Once I get the pink slip, looking for a backup plan.
Thanks.

I want to preface this by saying that this is my opinion/ unofficial case study! 😂
I hope this gives you a little laugh and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic as it supports my education further, I’ve learned so much from you all!
I’d also like to say; that while I’m no expert-
The experiences that have shaped me include having a thorough understanding of business, marketing, legal, cult psychology, scams/ponzi schemes in general and the psychology of buyers (also being highly skeptical human by nature helps😂).
While I may not cover everything here, I’d be happy to expand further should any questions arise.
I don’t touch on spirituality, cause girl- I just don’t get it!
Though I understand alot of you do, so please don’t take offence if I’m not being sensitive to that aspect of this.
A lot of people are still confused about how this is even a scam… so maybe this might be a starting point if you’re starting to unpack?
For the purpose of this case study, I will be talking about MAL and CMG.
The top dog and her student.
I initially thought to break this up into two versions, though there’s so many overlaps over the years, I thought for the sake of flow, I’d do my best to tackle both at once.
This timeline is from about 2017- current day though; I know we could probably track it back even further.
This will be long. Apologies in advance.
*Hopefully one day I can come back to this and attach all the evidence I’ve collected on this over the years*
Let’s start with MAL.
Step 1:
Do several years of courses (Tony Robbins is always at the top) and digest all his human psychology curriculum.
Hit rock bottom/ maxed out CC/ thousands in debt.
Get sick of spending said thousands/ ending up in debt and decide you can leverage the power of internet marketing and your gift of the gab.. to essentially, “do it better”.
At time of starting this, context is of upmost importance. Please note; while “coaching” has been going on since at least the 80’s, the internet hasn’t been saturated by the new age “coaches” at this point.
This combined with the ability of an extremely talented sales person= a significant origin story of a scam artist.
Step 2:
Tell a story… not any old story but a story that evokes strong emotions and a connectedness with a small audience. It must captivate (not everyone is capable of doing this, however, someone with the right skills understands this naturally)
Pick a platform. In this case- Facebook.
Do this consistently (I believe it was a 365 day “challenge”) and voilà, you have found your audience.
Step 3:
Sell something intangible, immeasurable- “personal development”, “energetics”, “manifestation”.
“Air”.
“Whatever you like” eventually becomes the theme tag.
Use vague, fluffy terms that appeal to a certain type of pain point that is found within the audience. Also ensure you find the right audience.. people with money who can be sold quickly.
Ie: This is where the pain point becomes the key strategy for sales. Selling to pain points is dirty work.. but if you need money in the door NOW- this is how you do it.
Again, we must consider that there’s a lot of behind the scenes preparation/ ability level in order to pull this kind of thing off.. again, not everyone is built this way.
Step 4:
Be ruthless.
Sell like your life depends on it (and at this point, let’s be honest, it probably did).
Throw away all your morals and go hard!
Become a master at objections- do not stop until you make the sale.
Again, this is where all the unethical dirty sales tactics come in and where the fight to keep money becomes a real part of daily operations.
Step 5:
The money starts coming in.
I believe this is the point she ACTUALLY considered a business plan (now any legitimate person would have know this is step one 🤦🏻‍♀️)
However, when you’ve observed scams for long enough *AND* you’re a narcissist, its easy to throw out all “traditional” business practices/ legal obligations and decide you can do what you like. It’s the internet after all! Who cares about any rules 🤪
This is where it gets interesting.
Step 6:
Piss off some people… but keep it hush.
There’s lots of ways this could happen.. but we know that MAL started lying about her income claims from very early on.
The income claims were the edge!
It encouraged people to buy from her, realise her content was fluff and speak up immediately (after losing several thousands).
How did she deal with this?
Silenced everyone. Blocked them. Expelled them from her orbit and kept their money. 🙊Once this strategy was established and she realised people weren’t coming back after her.. it was implemented as a core strategy for sales. (And my belief that she continued to build her team to “take down”, “silence” people who dared to share information/ speak out).
This is where the “earn and burn” model enters. Frowned upon in the sales world; generally used for short term gain.
Step 7:
Blow through as many first time customers, try to extract the most money possible from them. Dispose of them once your agreement ends.
This is also where I believe the “infinite customer base” idea came from.
I suppose at the time, the internet must have felt infinite!
Even if she burned the whole of Canada- who would even know anywhere else?
The globe is a huge stage.. but how to appeal to the masses?
This is where it gets fun.
Step 8:
Once your business starts to make some money.. you realise that it’s time to rebrand and make things look more luxurious.
Establish some amateur legal.
Make sure you cover yourself and promise no results in the terms and conditions.
State that there are “no refunds”.
Sell it as “entertainment” purposes.
Step 9:
Establish yourself as the “leader” of the “industry”!
Come up with terms like “she who leads herself”.
What this does, is it begins to control her audience and gaslight them into taking responsibility for leading themselves through the content- removing the workload from her.
At the same time the audience can’t think for themselves with the luxury marketing, income claims that double every time a new client comes in AND the promise that they too can have this luxurious lifestyle!
They’ve been told they can have it too!
They all just want to know HOW!?!?
“But first, you must pay me through my dodgy PayPal links..”
Step 10:
This is where it gets REALLY FUN for MAL..
As a sales person who takes great pride in her abilities- it’s a game to see just how far she can push it.
It starts with a $500 offering.. they lap it up.
This becomes “industry standard”.
Then it becomes $1K, 2K.. and so the game continues.. trying to find the margin of “just how much people will pay for an empty dream and a couple of zoom calls”.
The ultimate social experiment, usually reserved for Cult Leaders with a deep understanding of human psychology and narcissists alike!
But the question still becomes, how far do we push it?
Enter a pandemic.
Step 11:
Get stuck in Hawaii.
Use ALL your savings/ CC to purchase a private jet home.
USE THIS AS A LUXURY MARKETING TACTIC for at least a year… and bang ❗️
You’re charging 100K for a year.
Congrats.
The sky is the limit- you are now selling air for 100K!
You did it, you’re a scam artist. 👏🏼
Where to next?
Enter: Ashae Sundara.
Now up until this time; Shae Shae is a humble lil trust fund baby- living it up on Daddy’s dime and doing a lot of *medicina* between flights to Costa, Tulum and Boulder with her bestie Molly.
The perfect client for MAL. Young, "magnetising clients" with her sexual allure, rich girl who used to work at a smoothie shop trying to prove to Daddy that she can make it without her paid in full privileged education...
Some call this MAL’s IDEAL client.
CMG claims to have paid MAL somewhere along the lines of 100K for a whole year, with “deep TRUST” that she would make that back.
Step 12:
THE MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL RELATIONSHIP ENSUES
Even though Carly paid MAL, there were other things being exchanged here- namely eachother’s audiences.
MAL’s audience was a little rough at this point in time, she needed to legitimise.
She saw this as an opportunity to get exposure to an audience who had already been primed in the sex “coaching” world, she also knew that if she could prove success (even fake success) using Shae Shae, her business would explode.
Touché.
I remember CMG talking about how her mentor MAL was the one to encourage her making insane income claims, “because even if the money wasn’t there yet, it would be there eventually.” So… I guess that’s where the lie became mainstream?🙊
Step 13:
They catapult each other into success.
This is the time where CMG starts realising to make the big bucks, she needs to start making HUGE income claims.
I actually have never seen MAL hype up a client more than she did with Shae Shae and vice versa..
They were both hungry and willing to do anything to be known as “the top of the industry”.
Insert CMG’s 2 Million Dollar mark at the end of working with MAL for one year. 🥂
I mean… chin chin bitches!
I remember the pure joy from both of them for thinking they’d found the money glitch in the matrix!
How times have changed now… 🫠
The only thing that’s different here at the time is that MAL is making insane income claims while selling “business/manifestation” and CMG is making insane income claims and selling “sexual allure” and “sex coaching”:
This is where is gets icky.
Step 14:
Now the confidence grows.
The scam has been legitimised, the money is ROLLING in.
People are locked down, on their phones more often. People are vulnerable.
Now how to scale?
The PONZI SCHEME is born.
Sometime in the year MAL works with CMG or the year after.. (2021?)
Step 15:
MAL creates an “affiliate program”.
Leveraging her audience to bring in new customers- MAL pays them a nice little fee for their efforts. (I can’t remember MAL’s affiliate program document exactly but I have seen people in her current groups offering 40% of their sale as an incentive). Wow.
Ain’t no sales person making 40% of their sale IRL, what an opportunity to all the die hard affiliates!
Step 16:
Now MAL’s audience become a groomed MLM machine.
Selling to friends, becoming a down line, all the while, the people at the “TOP” reap the rewards.
Meanwhile, CMG tries to create an affiliate program; even recruiting one of MAL’s top lines herself *cough* Indriani *cough*- but because CMG is a dumby at the core, she doesn’t follow through.
They tell their audiences the money is coming in while they rest and promise all “marketing is organic”.
In this time MAL has established multiple income streams, selling water bottles and journals that all appear to be so “magical”.
The “cool girls” club emerges.
Along with the “mean girl” attitudes.
You see, what people forget is that the whole time? They’re burning people for hundreds of thousands, potentially even millions!
Though due to embarrassment and the way they were muted/expelled from “their exclusive world”, a lot of people just kept quiet, and tried not to share that they just gave a stranger on the internet thousands of dollars for something that held no value.
And so…
Step 17:
Mo money, mo problems.
The damage control begins.
You start hearing gaslighting/ manipulative tactics every time there’s a little doubt or push back.
Objections are not just cleared- they’re downright pushed out of existence with the way they begin to groom their respective audiences.
Not making any money?
“You’re not trying hard enough, there’s something wrong with you.”
You don’t have the money to enter my world?
“If you wanted it badly enough, you’d find a way. Take out a credit card if you have to.”
Wonder why you all are paying me thousands while I don’t pay a single cent even for things like websites, other coaches?
“Jokes on you, you see, it’s for me, for you, for us and I’M the leader- so all you peasants needs to pay me in order to get access to this exclusivity.”
I told you this was ruthless work.
Running a scam is no joke!
Remember: They start to believe their own BS and when this happens.. the confidence is strong and things get very very unhinged.
Every dirty, unethical tactic is used, and these “businesses” become a permanent damage control situation.
It’s actually quite comical to observe because you can literally see every objection people are having- and how they manipulate that objection to get their folks in line.
MAL is the master; but even CMG got pretty good at spinning her audience to suit her needs.
At the height of the scam of “coaches teaching coaches to coach”- the audience start regurgitating the same concepts to their audience.. and so the market becomes “saturated”.
Step 18:
Scale. Reach the masses.
I also believe at the time of scaling MAL started to make her content more generic to “cast the net to a wider audience”.
I believe the phrasing she used at the time was something along the lines of “appealing to as many people as possible”.
IE: “I’m not just selling fluff to the rich anymore, I am now established enough to become more vague and appeal to as many people as possible”.
(At this time; they still believe they have an infinite pool of people they can burn).
Step 19:
Meanwhile the year CMG is working with MAL, she launches TQY21.
Her first year long program.
It was essentially a carbon copy of MAL’s year long program she took the year prior- and she starts faking MAL’s accent, using MAL’s (already plagiarised) content and basically becomes a little version of MAL, well with a little more sex appeal too.
It was fun to watch as MAL had somehow managed to make a robot out of her! Something that becomes visible across the entire “coaching industry”.
Step 20 :
Then 2022 happens… people start to speak out.
This sub is born. 🎉
I think if you’ve been here for the last year, you know this will always be part of the story of the grand collapse. I won’t go into too much detail but let’s just say 2022 ended in a bang! 🙊
Since then..
MAL keeps tightening up her legal.
She trademarked her font for the “Alpha Femme” brand (she tried to trademark things like “pineapple season” but judging by the court documents, they knocked her back for a few years before letting her trademark her little font- even the courts don’t know how to legitimatise this scam 😂)
CMG however, makes the worst decisions of her life..
Enter TQY 22.
A true shit show.
Basically, everything you DON’T do to make money.
The content is coming soon (life is chaotic atm) but I think once everyone sees it, we can unpack just how badly it all went from this point.
It’s as if Carly got so much confidence and delusion from her prior year that she truly dropped the ball.
Missed calls, rescheduling every month, never showing up in the Telegram group (until her employee left at the end of last year).
I think you all know I could rant on about all the horrible things I’ve witnessed over the years in Ashae’s courses: including but not limited to the grooming of young impressionable women, the lack of age verification.. etc etc.
but I won’t digress here!
MAL pivots, tightens up her legal further and inserts herself as the “leade top dog” to clean up the mess CMG made.
I think we all know how that has been unfolding 👀
As soon as MAL came in with her “buyeseller” responsibility bs- the coaches jumped on board.
What other choice did they have but to double down??!!
They’re all invested; probably in loads of debt and still hanging onto the dream that they too can make millions from taking MAL’s courses!
So here we are… in 2023 watching the same gaslighting techniques in order to try and keep the scam alive.
It’s true, MAL still has impact. But that impact is being challenged every day, and by the lack of an external PR company and the way she’s putting ex customers on blast on her Insta.. I don’t think even the top dog can come back from this one.
Again; it’s basically the playbook on how NOT to damage control a business situation gone wrong. Let alone a scam that’s been exposed! 😂
CMG also sloppily updates her terms (and skimped on paying the lawyers again..) to try and cover herself in the future. The damage has been done to all her prior customers, if they knew any better, they’d be suing her ass and taking her for everything.
Some things to consider from a buyers perspective:
A seller’s job is to “create value” in whatever they are offering. There’s loads of techniques to do this.. but as an example it may be selling at a discount, creating urgency, adding on extra “classes”- whatever the method- it’s all to create perceived “value”. This is not to say that these methods are ethical; but it happens.
Why this is a scam?
Well… I guess it begins at the point where the seller knows they’re broke, have nothing to sell, and need to create a product out of thin air. Sound familiar?
It never made any sense to me that people would purchase a video call on zoom for a few thousand dollars- because that’s what’s left when you strip away all the fluff- but KUDOS to MAL for being the sales person that she is and pulling that off!
However, this “industry” would’ve never kicked off had the consumers not “perceived value” from her ability to market and sell!
Now, that’s not to blame them- they truly weren’t reading the Terms and Conditions back then (like MAL likes to tell them off for not doing NOW 😂😂😂)
Though, in most cases, the terms were either:

• non-existent at the time of purchase,
• not written/approved by a legal team
• AND were being hidden behind their paywalls or websites (if they even had one at the time).

The consumer didn’t have access!
Obvs a red flag for anyone who WAS reading into the terms and conditions of this scam- but to the general audience who were spellbound by the promises of making millions— they didn’t even have a chance to properly understand what they were getting themselves into.
They like to preach “transparency” and “ethics” now that the whole ships blown up, but where was that transparency before?
So where are we now?
Scams continue. They always do.
Especially if it goes legal and they find a loop hole through again. (Tony Robbins is still out here selling his courses despite many many lawsuits!)
So I don’t see this stopping any time soon.
Where Shae Shae crossed lines was when she was grooming her audience with sex, filming them in pleasure circles and just creating downright dangerous environments for her clients.
Where MAL crossed lines, was when she lied about her income claims to get her noticed and when she started marketing to the masses, treating them like a number.
Which brings me to numbers…
Every coach out there who is still hanging on are either:
working on overdrive
look like they’ve been crying for weeks
or are constantly in defence mode with their audience.
Remember that “infinite pool” we spoke about earlier? It’s clear that the numbers of people willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for a zoom sesh just isn’t the same as it was.
They can package it as “more value”, add in “extra classes”, offer “subscriptions…”
But they will never see the numbers they were seeing in the wild wild pandemic times of 2020-2022! 💃🏻💃🏻
Woo! Notice all the coaches are selling their zoom calls for a nice $33 in these global recession times?
The market has officially levelled itself out- the “coaching industry” has effectively created its own regulation about price points- and while I hate to ever call it an industry- I guess it sort of is, as long as the consumers keep buying into it and feeding the cycle.
There’s a lot more to say regarding capitalism, consumer habits, the money manifestation bubble, the history of new age spirituality, cult tactics etc, but this is the best I could do for now. I could also write several novels on the back end operations/ behind the scenes mistakes that have cost them long term... I also have so many thoughts able where MAL will eventually pivot but this is already so long!!!
One good thing to have come out of this mess is that the consumer is actually more equipped than ever to spot the scam!
For months we preached the FTC regulations- to the point where I’m sure EVERYONE has read them over by now and considered how dodgy all the coaching sales and marketing tactics REALLY are.
Another thing I have noticed is that the coaches have streamlined their legal (some more questionable than others…) and are preaching “policy” and “consumer responsibility” from the rooftops so as to bypass their actual responsibilities as business owners.
Maybe now- the consumers will actually READ through the (very questionable) policies they’ve put in place to cover their ass and realise that if you need that many clauses in your “business artistry” or “somatic practitioner” businesses…. Maybe these businesses aren’t as legit as they seem? 🤷🏻‍♀️😉
And that my friends.. is my case study on one of the best ongoing scams that has ever lived!
😂
Feel free to add in any resources that support anything I’ve talked about in the comments!
Oh and if you ever feel intimidated by any coach, just remember, from a business perspective- they’re amateur on their best day and downright illegal on their worst.
Thank you for reading if you made it this far!

Anyone remember that shit from elementary school? "Sell X items and win these shitty cheap prizes" with a catalog selling overpriced wrapping paper, popcorn, magazine bundles, or whatever else. And you'd get pulled out of learning time for the hour-long assembly announcing it and going thru all the prizes, from "Cheap Chinese Toy You Can Get On Amazon For $5" #1 if you sell 3 items all the way to an Xbox or hoverboard if you sell 3927435753 items. Shit shouldn't even be called a school fundraiser, because it's a glorified MLM where the company making the catalogs is presumably getting most of the cuts from the funds that could be going to the school.
My first experience with these "fundraisers" was 1st grade, trying to get my turn playing Mario Kart on the Games2U game truck that came during recess only to be blocked from entering by the supervising teacher because my parents didn't pressure everyone we knew to buy some wrapping paper. Yes, that truck was conveniently parked right in front of the playground during recess so all the non-fundraising kids had to look at the hanging carrot they couldn't eat.

Hey everyone,
I'm working on writing actual an actual pamphlet/essay and wanted some notes before I fully publish it.

Shut up and you'll be rich. The mantra of the government. Ok, maybe not rich, but definitely better than your grandparents could have dreamed of. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, it worked. After all, free speech and gay rights won't put a roof over your head. An amazing roof to an amazing home filled with TVs and microwaves, fridges and freezers full of foods from around the globe, computers and stereos, and plane tickets to destinations you never dreamed you'd see with your 2 weeks of vacation time.
That was how things were supposed to work. You won't gain widespread unrest if the people were satisfactorily fed, housed, and given just enough entertainment that they forgot they were slaving away to make the ruling class even richer. All they had to do was shut up to see themselves get richer. Maybe throw in another major political party in there that's really the same side so the people believe their voices are being heard. And don't forget to throw in some other parties that will never have power for those who are really mad (this step is slightly less optional than the less, but carries fewer risks when the cards are so stacked against them, the can't possibly win).
And then something changed. In 2008, the world gets hit with a recession and those at the top have said they're done sharing wealth. It's all going to belong to a few billionaires and that's that. It'll be fine.
Except it won't. Those who shut up were holding out for their end of the deal and now they aren't getting it. Why can't the neoliberal governments make good on their promise? Behold fascism and MLM communism: they have the solution to the problems of the masses. They tell the people that their voices have been oppressed for too long. They remind people they actually hate their neighbors, because of their skin color, sexual orientation, gender, national origin, or religion. Because after all, if it wasn't for that group messing up the status quo, they'd be richer like they were promised.
The neoliberal parties see the popularity of this and while it isn't in their hearts to genocide their own people, it is in their hearts to maintain their power. "Maybe it doesn't have to get all the way to a genocide," they tell themselves. "What if we just ramp up the harassment of the minority groups we've been harassing for centuries?" Yeah. Let's give that a try.
That's not enough. They win their elections, but just barely. They almost lose to the parties that were meant for protest votes that would be incinerated. Fascism has now become mainstream. And minorities aren't going to bail the status quo out after being thrown under the bus.
The next problem neoliberalism will face is a pandemic. The powers that be don't actually care about the health and safety of their populace, but the robots haven't automated everything yet, so they decide keeping them alive to hope to survive until full automation is a reality is necessary, but as soon as there's a sign of a cure, those workers need to be back to slaving away. Except there's one small hiccup.
The methods used to make the average citizen appear richer involved a highly complex global supply chain that was trimmed down to be as efficient as possible. The problem is that the slightest hiccup will lead to shortages of basically everything. And now the populace is angrier. Workers are truly demanding higher wages and better conditions. And this has caused problems not just for the neoliberal west, but governments around the world.
In the Middle East, the countries that avoided the revolts of the Arab Spring were the ones that took "shut up and you'll be rich" to heart. Unfortunately, when you're a petro state and nobody is driving because there's a deadly virus, how do you make the people rich? Now the cracks start to show. People who were content and comfortable are now demanding freedoms. And then there's China.
"Shut up and you'll be rich" may as well have been written on billboards in China. People shut up. People got rich. Yes, the regime was quick to quell any criticism of the the party itself, but people didn't care becuase they were making so much more money than they ever dreamed possible. But a pandemic is a gift for an authoritarian regime. They can exert even more control while claiming altruism. It was almost too perfect. Yes, China would be the country to prove that you could in fact get rich as long as you shut up. And if you couldn't, we'll at least it was for the greater good.
But the ruling class once again got too greedy. While western billionaires spent the pandemic playing astronaut, the Chinese masses faced random lockdowns for 2 years. Being starved, unable to leave your own home makes being rich irrelevant. And everybody was suffering from these. Sure. The spyware may have been a tad annoying, but if it made society safer, people would tolerate it. But how can one claim to be saving lives while trapping people in their homes with nothing to eat? From a virus that while potentially deadly, most people recover from? So the protests began
Shut up and you'll be rich may work for a while. But eventually, the time comes that you aren't able to get rich. And then you're left with nothing. Those who are or have been persecuted know this and have been the first to speak out against this system. After all, we had nothing to lose to begin with. We were never going to be rich. Maybe you'll be lucky and you'll die before the money has been sucked back to the top, but will your kids? This century has been a wake up call. Your government is not looking out for you. It's time to fight the system of oppression.

Because of the recession, people in my town are trying to find other jobs to make ends meet. Some folks are doing Door Dash, Uber, etc. However, I've noticed more MLM store fronts are popping up.
MLMs are nothing new here. We are deep into the Bible Belt, and we know that MLMs try to appeal to the religious women that want to stay home and raise kids but also want to make money. There are three cafés selling Herbalife, a consignment store peddling Paparazzi, and a big Avon shop all within the view of my office. However, there is more and more every day.
They'll rent out an empty store front for maybe three months before closing. Then another will follow. Then there is someone with a Young Living sticker on their minivan with contact information to "Change their life!" and recruit more vulnerable women.
It angers me. My town is very poor. There are wealthy people here, but they have secluded themselves in their gate communities. The working people are stuck fighting for every dollar only for these uplines to swoop in and prey on their financial desperation. When these things don't work out, they are left more and more in debt. It's exhausting and honestly so evil to prey on people already not in the best financial circumstances.
I just needed to let this out. MLMs thrive off the backs of manipulated people during these recessions, no matter how huns spin it. It's awful.