... and no, it's not going to be what you expect to see. :)
Dear Readers,
The last time I published a blog post, I wrote about the heavy and very vulnerable topic of what it has been like trying to concieve. It was loaded, but so many women related and felt appreciative of my having spoken up in such a public space. I'm really grateful it was so well received.
This post is not much different, in that it is bound to be just as heavy. Even so, I highly encourage you to keep an open mind as you scroll forward. I've been relatively silent on the mud slinging going on in the network marketing industry as of late and I feel burdened to now speak up about it. Please hear me when I say this comes from a place of grace, pun somewhat intended.
So, pull up a chair and make a cuppa. It's time we discuss the truth about network markets.
Love,
Gracie
NWMs are not your enemy, but they'll never be your friend either if all you do is bash them from behind a screen without giving them a genuine go.
Let me share my story so that you have more insight to see what I mean.
In March 2023, I knew big changes were going to happen. The Lord and I had been hashing out a lot of heavy things since November the year before. I had just come out of a season of complacency in my walk with Christ and knew that the lifestyle I was leading would never be a sustainable one where I could truly pursue Jesus the way I knew I needed and wanted to.
(I've found that my pursuit of Christ involves more than an hour in the Word and in prayer in the mornings. Since I journal my prayers before reading from Scripture, there's never a guarantee my time can be "limited", so to speak.)
What lifestyle was I leading? Not even a "bad" one, but definitely one that was incompatible with what the Lord had burdened my heart with.
(I recently listened to a really good livestream by former colleagues through Monat who are strong believers in the saving gospel of Jesus. They shared that your burden/calling in life, and the things you are passionate about and for in life rarely change -- but that it is naive to assume your assignment will always be the same. This married couple has undergone a change of assignment but it's been obvious to see how their respective burdens and passions have remained unchanged. My dropping out of college was most definitely a change of assignment, but we'll get to that later.)
I was a college student, in training to become an Elementary teacher and minoring in my second language. Managing the college lifestyle along with Type 1 diabetes was never easy, but it grew worse the longer I stayed in school.
I found myself reliant on high dose NSAIDs to deal with chronic migraines and period cramps. Then I was reliant on Melatonin pills to get a good 4 hours of sleep so I could wake up and do schoolwork for however long it took to meet all my class requirements. That led to skipping meals frequently so I could have free time to do more schoolwork. I did laundry maybe, if I was lucky, once a month or even every two months if I had my way. I got diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety and went to therapy once every other week which was barely enough to help me cope with the brutal anxiety attacks that would violently assault my body and my headspace on the regular.
Granted, much of this was just the nature of starting college in the middle of a pandemic, carrying emotional baggage from evacuating Senegal due to said pandemic and not having the opportunity for any closure to a chapter of my life that had spanned 11 years.
But the rest of it? Everything else that had gone off the rails? That was because I was trying to force my life to look exactly how I thought it should have. Even though it was very clear 2 years into the whole thing that I was operating against the very clear change of assignment that God had laid on my heart.
Instead of reassessing what I thought God was calling me to, I just ran full speed ahead with what sounded right and seemed right to everyone else around me. And the cost was very high.
Half way through my junior year of college God very graciously brought me to my breaking point. I needed to be humbled, I just wasn't expecting it to look the way it did.
My health grew extremely worse. I tried everything in my control to fix myself and stabilize things but it just kept declining. Come late January 2023, I found myself getting an ultrasound because my period cramps had gotten so bad and I was passing very large clots, soaking through 5 large maxi pads in less than 2 hours time. My then boyfriend spent many hours on his knees, laying hands on my stomach, begging God for mercy and for healing. We knew we wanted to get married soon, and our hearts felt heavy when we realized everything that was happening could possibly mean I might not ever be able to conceive and carry children. We hadn't even gotten engaged yet, and we realized infertility was already a threat. It was sobering.
All those nights bent over the toilet bowl throwing up because of the cramps and the migraines and the nausea and the stress of being expected to pretend everything was fine and continue with schooling demands changed me. I cried out to God the hardest I ever have - "Jesus, please! Please be kind!"
There were moments where I had such a hard time breathing through the pain that I just pleaded with Jesus in my head. "Please, God, help me! I cannot do this. Please, be kind and sustain me. I am begging you to take away this pain."
By March, I had been able to see the Lord's kindness. The ultrasound revealed I was free of endometriosis & not in danger of developing it. My ovaries looked healthy, so did my uterus, albeit the fact that it is positioned anteriorly so it presses against my spine. God was kind. My boyfriend and I knew we were going to get married soon. My friendships deepened and I began to truly have a community of people in my corner who knew everything & still loved me and fought for me in prayer when I was healing from the worst of it.
By March, God had gotten through to me. It took all of that for me to see I had adopted plans for my life that were never straight from him to begin with.
Had he called me to teach? Yes. I hadn't misheard that part. I could look back on my own life and realize all the ways in which teaching was very much suited to how he created me.
But who was I called to teach? That part was hard to swallow at first. I had misinterpreted the assignment without even realizing it.
I had just spent 2.5 years in school to teach in elementary schools. I had thought it didn't really matter where I ended up teaching, whether internationally or domestically, so long as I was at least teaching somewhere.
Turns out I was wrong about that. But I learned as much in God's timing and not my own.
I'd like to believe my three years of college were not wasted. Many will say and have said they were because I didn't get a degree out of it, but I see the divine hand of God who used those three years as a vessel to get me to where he created me to be.
He is God, so could he have just put me where he wanted me without all that hardship? Absolutely. I can't argue that. But I think those three years were necessary because I needed to be refined. I needed to grow deeper gratitude for things. I needed to be able to know beyond a shadow of doubt that my identity would always be daughter of the king before any career I might have ended up with. I needed to learn how to be dependent on God as my Father, my sustainer, and my provider of all things after having lived for 14+ years in a state of chronic independence.
It was after I started to heal physically that I was able to have deeper conversations with God and it was somewhat easier to discern his voice more clearly.
He had burdened me to teach, yes, but more specifically to disciple young hearts after his way and his commandments.
What young hearts? I wasn't even engaged yet. How could I be sure I was hearing from him correctly this time?
While this ongoing conversation with God was happening, and my health was continuing to improve, there was one area that hadn't which saddened me more than I thought it would.
My scalp had a couple of very large bald spots, and it was covered in scabs from where I would itch to bleeding due to how greasy it was because I rarely had time to shower and would just coat my scalp with dry shampoo (that I didn't know contained propane because...why would dry shampoo have that as a base ingredient?). I lost brushfuls of hair multiple times a day and was embarrassed to wear dark colors because I shed more hair than a dog and couldn't hide it.
A friend of mine who also has Type 1 diabetes and was in nursing school at the time had been selling haircare products online for several months at that point and I had been watching her Instagram and learned a lot of things I started to apply to my own routine and it did help, but not by much. One day, I was just watching her talk on her stories about how she had to change her insulin pump but was struggling to do it for some reason and it dawned on me that maybe she knew of products I could try to help heal my hair.
I reached out to her that very same day with all of my questions. She very kindly listened as I poured out my heart and my frustrations and when I had gotten it all out of my system she said "Thank you for being honest. I'd love to help you."
We talked about what my main health issues were concerning my hair and she was able to explain down to the very ingredients why certain products would help me and which ones would work against me in the long run.
God opened the door allowing for me to join her team as a Market Partner through Monat upfront, even though I told myself I wasn't overly interested in doing the business side of things. My enthusiasm was through the roof! I was one step closer to healing my hair and gaining some confidence back. It didn't stop there either.
As I watched my hair and scalp heal, I realized the business side of things was important too. Not for me, but for other men and women just like me who were longing for beautiful hair that their chronic illnesses just wouldn't support.
By May, I was engaged and had tied up all loose ends and I withdrew from college permanently for that season. (I still wasn't convinced I didn't need a degree, so there are loopholes that would allow me to resume easily but that's a story for a different time.)
I eventually began to share my story publicly online in the summer of 2023 after our engagement and my having moved off the college campus. That was when I really owned up to the fact that I wanted to do the business side of the coin, if only so I could bless others.
We were planning for an August wedding and were soaking in the joy of being in the engagement season of our relationship.
I was grateful to have a creative outlet to share my passion for healing hair. My fiancé had a solid plan to finish up his degree in the coming fall. I was able to witness more of the Lord's gracious kindness towards us.
After we got married & I made the move to New Hampshire and we were a couple months into marriage, it occurred to me that many people have a very different view of what I do in the network marketing world. This didn't surprise me, because, hello! A college dropout who got married at 21 and was already eagerly anticipating children and motherhood? It isn't the normal thing you hear about so I could understand why people passed judgment on my choices as odd, or even unwise.
It is now early July and my husband and I have nearly been married for a whole year. We are still very much in the honeymoon phase of marriage. Still very much in love and enjoying life.
It is because of where we are now that I find myself needing to explain a few things for the public's sake, and for the sake of all the women who are being unfairly bashed against rocks simply for making similar decisions to be active in the network marketing world.
Network marketing is not a pyramid scheme.
Pyramid schemes require you to buy hundreds or thousands of dollars of product upfront to join the team that you are then expected to move and sell on your own in order to rank up and get paid more. These are not sustainable. You are left with boxes of product that no one wants, and left to your own devices without proper training and business tools. That's what a scam really looks like.
Network marketing is sustainable.
Especially when you join with a network market that provides tools, training, and resources all for free in addition to holding the philosophy that if you are going to promote products you must have tried them for yourself first, truly believing in their efficacy and functionality.
Think of it in this way:
We all have networks of family, friends, coworkers, and internet followers that we talk to daily.
That coffee you just told your friend to try from Starbucks? That's network marketing. You liked the product, so you recommended it to your friend and she bought it too and agrees with your assessment. The coffee is good! So she tells two more girlfriends about it & so on so forth.
That toothpaste your dentist gave you that really works for your easily irritated gums that you just recommended to your father in law because he's been looking for an affordable but effective toothpaste? You just network marketed.
We ALL network market every day and 99% of the time we do it without second thought and without getting paid for it, simply because these are people we know and love and we also know that they would appreciate the products we recommend for them.
But IF you want to get paid for network marketing, there are brands you can partner with to make that possible!
At first, I didn't care about the money. I just wanted to share hope with men and women who were struggling like I had been. I still don't care about the money at all, but feel blessed when an extra paycheck comes in so I can buy a coffee or a new bra or dress or whatever it is without feeling like I'm burdening my husband with something outside of our budget.
There is also something else to consider here. Every family has different values. My husband and I knew that working outside the home full time after getting married was not an option on the table for me. My place is in the home and I labor in ways that don't get financial recognition. His role is different. He works outside the home 5 days a week so that we are well provided for.
In our family, we value homemaking and when God blesses us with children, it is a non negotiable that I be the one to care for them and teach them, at least while they are young. Teenage years will look different, and we can cross that road when we get to it. (This what I mean when I say I had misinterpreted my assignment earlier, as homeschooling with liberties and freedoms and teaching in the school system under state and federal law are two drastically different things.)
Because of this, we were not looking for my job/hobby of network marketing to pay all of our bills and living expenses. That has never been our intention. That's my husband's job and role in our marriage and in my submission to him I have no desire to steal his thunder.
But again, not all families have the same values. If you want to make more than a full time income and have a huge empire, it is possible but I will get to that.
There is a way to network market well and to do so with integrity. That is what I strive for.
Sales does not have to be slimy. It's only slimy when you make it slimy.
Network marketing offers whatever you need it to for your family's needs. It truly does, but not by twiddling your thumbs. It requires effort and hard work or, as affectionately called in the network marketing world, grit and hustle.
Network marketing through brands like Monat or Arbonne is also not for lazy people. It's not.
Network marketing will not get you rich quick, and it does not reap mind blowing results over night. It takes time.
In the business world, it is common knowledge that it takes two or three years before there begins to be noticeable profits.
Network marketing is no exception. Your upline has large profits because they've dedicated 5 years or longer to their own growth and the growth of others. That's the empire I'm talking about.
If an empire is what you want, network marketing can provide that but not overnight. Invest a good 6 years of your time and more and then you'll have the beginnings of an empire but even then, it won't remain that way if you were to slack off.
The truth about NWMs is that they are not your enemy. I'm involved with two and they have blessed my family and are continuing to bless my friends and followers and their families too. I can personally attest to the fact that they are not the great big scam people label them as.
But in that same breath, NWMs won't be your friend either if all you do is bash them and those of us who are involved with them.
No one is perfect and even the best NWMs out there have a long history containing everything from lawsuits to internal economy or infrastructure crashes. Life happens to all of us, especially in the corporate business world and the network marketing world is not unscathed either.
Does this mean there aren't ever some wolves in sheep's clothing with everything but pure intentions and integrity? Of course not. It would be a lie to claim that as truth.
But not every NWM is out to get you.
I am involved with two NWMs and I myself am not out to get you. I operate with integrity and where I fall short, I have my team and my followers to hold me accountable.
I do not cold message people.
I do not prey on women.
I certainly don't stalk people's social media profiles to determine if they are a "good fit" - aka look broke enough to "fall for" what I do.
I do not use my faith in Jesus and my personal relationship with him to honey trap potential clients into joining my team.
I will not shove product down your throat and expect you to purchase from me in order to stay friends with me.
I am a network marketer who loves Jesus and is passionate about non toxic living.
I am a stay at home wife and network marketing provides me with fun money so I can buy things that don't always fit into our budget and the ability to take as much time off as I want to or need to whenever I want.
If you reach out to me because what I have to offer is something that would bless you? Of course I'm excited to help you! What friend wouldn't be?
We are not all the same.
I apologize if you have been through a slimy sales experience or were gaslit by a NWM that doesn't operate with integrity. I cannot imagine how painful that must have been. I grieve for you and pray you are finding solace in Christ.
This is my personal testimony and experience with how good NWMs can be for those who have a desire to see them as tools in this hard economy we're living in.
And I think it's a message the "haters" need to hear.
Come out from behind your computer and phone screens. Come have a conversation with us. If a NWM has hurt you, share your story with us so we can pray for you and encourage you. We are not going to ask you to buy product from us unless you want to and want to know where or how to start fresh.
Don't bash us. Many, if not most, of us do not deserve that. And just like you, are deserving of kindness and understanding.
That's all.
Comments