Bridget Read (on multilevel marketing)

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard: Bridget Reed on Multilevel Marketing

Podcast Information:

• Title: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
• Host: Dax Shepard
• Guest: Bridget Reed, Reporter and Features Writer at New York Magazine
• Episode Topic: Multilevel Marketing (MLM)
• Release Date: July 16, 2025

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Introduction to Multilevel Marketing (MLM)

In this episode of Armchair Expert, host Dax Shepard engages in an in-depth conversation with Bridget Reed, a seasoned reporter from New York Magazine and author of the insightful book, Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America. The discussion delves into the intricate world of multilevel marketing (MLM), unraveling its historical roots, operational mechanics, and profound socioeconomic impacts.

Historical Origins and Evolution of MLM

Bridget Reed traces the genesis of MLM back to post-World War II America, highlighting the inception of the first MLM company, Neutralite, in the mid-1940s. She explains how MLMs emerged as a response to the burgeoning consumer economy and the desire for flexible, entrepreneurial opportunities, particularly appealing to women entering the workforce.

“[Neutralite] invented a scheme to avoid all the worst things that conventional sales had,” commented Bridget Reed at [14:26].

Reed emphasizes the influence of early MLM pioneers who intertwined their business models with prevailing social and religious ideologies, notably Calvinist Christianity, fostering a culture that equated entrepreneurial success with moral virtue.

MLM Mechanics vs. Pyramid Schemes

A central theme of the discussion is the blurred line between legitimate MLMs and illegal pyramid schemes. Reed articulates how MLMs maintain their legality by emphasizing product sales over recruitment, adhering to FTC guidelines that mandate compensation based on actual sales rather than merely recruiting new members.

“Multi-level marketing is definitely the official name,” Reed explains at [11:22], “And if you Google the FTC, what they say about multi-level marketing? It is the official name for this type of business where you're recruiting people and you can make money off your team.”

However, through meticulous research, Reed argues that in practice, MLMs operate similarly to pyramid schemes. The primary revenue often stems not from product sales but from the continuous recruitment of new participants, leading to market saturation and inevitable collapse akin to classic Ponzi schemes.

“[MLMs] are functionally a Ponzi scheme,” Reed asserts at [15:53], highlighting the unsustainable nature of their business models.

Impact on Participants: Success Rates and Personal Stories

Reed presents alarming statistics, revealing that over 99% of MLM participants lose money. She underscores the deceptive allure of MLMs, which capitalize on individuals' aspirations for financial independence and personal growth.

“The current figure in your book is 99% of everyone that gets involved with an MLM will lose money,” Dax comments at [30:23].

To illustrate the human cost, Reed shares the poignant story of Monique, a former Air Force member whose introduction to MLM through a religious networking group led her into a decade-long cycle of debt and unfulfilled promises. Monique's journey exemplifies the emotional and financial devastation inflicted by MLMs on vulnerable individuals.

Regulatory Efforts and Challenges

The conversation delves into the historical regulatory attempts to curb MLMs, focusing on significant cases like Amway in the 1970s. Reed explains how political alliances and lobbying by MLM founders, such as Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel, thwarted stringent regulations, allowing MLMs to flourish despite their exploitative structures.

“They allow us to say, allow a bunch of claims through and as long as they just make those claims, they don't shut down the company,” Reed notes at [54:33], referencing the FTC's lenient stance on established MLMs.

Reed critiques the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) ineffective enforcement, pointing out loopholes like the buyback rule that MLMs exploit to mask their pyramid-like operations.

Socioeconomic Implications and the American Ethos

Reed connects the proliferation of MLMs to broader themes of American capitalism, income inequality, and the myth of meritocracy. She argues that MLMs perpetuate societal inequities by promoting a "get yours" mentality, where individual success is prioritized over collective welfare.

“[MLMs] are a microcosm for our entire system,” Reed explains at [68:51], emphasizing how MLMs reflect and exacerbate systemic economic disparities.

The discussion also touches on how MLMs tap into personal insecurities and the desire for control, especially during economic downturns, making them particularly resilient and attractive during times of financial instability.

Gender Dynamics and Religious Influences in MLM

Bridget Reed highlights the strategic targeting of women by MLMs, leveraging aspects of community, faith, and personal development to recruit and retain members. She discusses how MLMs often align themselves with Christian values and prosperity gospel principles, creating a facade of moral and spiritual upliftment.

“These communities are ripe for the picking,” Reed states at [64:40], referring to how MLMs infiltrate religious gatherings to expand their reach.

The use of churches as recruitment grounds underscores the manipulative tactics MLMs employ, intertwining their business models with spiritual and communal bonds to foster loyalty and unquestioning participation.

Modern Resurgence and Digital Rebranding of MLMs

Reed observes a resurgence of MLM-like structures in the digital age, where remote working and online platforms have rebranded traditional MLMs to adapt to modern entrepreneurial trends. She draws parallels between MLMs and contemporary phenomena like cryptocurrency schemes, both exploiting similar psychological triggers and societal vulnerabilities.

“MLM just again, seeds on the ground among individuals in their living rooms, in their churches,” Reed notes at [76:19], indicating how these models evolve yet retain their core exploitative nature.

Conclusion: Insights and Recommendations

Bridget Reed wraps up by emphasizing the need for greater awareness and education about the true nature of MLMs. She advises listeners to critically evaluate MLM opportunities and recognize the inherent risks and exploitative mechanics.

“The faster somebody sees the reality, the faster they will get out,” Reed advises at [84:44].

Reed's book, Little Bosses Everywhere, serves as a crucial exposé on MLMs, shedding light on their deceptive practices and the widespread economic and emotional toll they exact on participants.

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Notable Quotes:

• "It's both so informal. It seemed like the Wild West... but also these companies are traded on stock exchanges." — Bridget Reed ([10:06])

• "99% of everyone that gets involved with an MLM will lose money." — Dax Shepard ([30:23])

• "Multi-level marketing has been able to tell its own story for 80 years, which is part of why when I looked into it, there wasn't an outsider like a journalist or like somebody else telling that story." — Bridget Reed ([19:16])

• “These communities are ripe for the picking.” — Bridget Reed ([64:40])

• “The faster somebody sees the reality, the faster they will get out.” — Bridget Reed ([84:44])

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Final Thoughts:

Bridget Reed's exploration into the MLM industry exposes the deep-seated issues and systemic exploitation embedded within these seemingly entrepreneurial ventures. By intertwining historical context, personal narratives, and critical analysis, the podcast episode offers listeners a comprehensive understanding of how MLMs operate and their broader implications on American society. Reed's insights call for heightened vigilance and informed decision-making to combat the pervasive influence of pyramid schemes masquerading as legitimate business opportunities.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[Monica Padman]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

Hi. Today we have Bridget. Read on. Bridget is a reporter and features writer at New York Magazine and and she has a new book out now called Little Bosses Everywhere. How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America. This is all about multi level marketing.

[Monica Padman]

Mlms, baby.

[Dax Shepard]

This was fascinating.

[Monica Padman]

We learned so much. Yes, I've been talking about this one a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

Yep. And great advice too for people within this episode. Please enjoy Bridget Reed. We are supported by Audible. Thanks to Audible for being the presenting sponsor of today's episode. We could all use and escape these days and the best way to do it audible. With over 1 million titles in their selection, there's more to imagine with Audible. We are supported by BetterHelp. You know, as we are in the height of summer now, I am reminded about how important it is to be able to step away from work and manage some of that stress you collect over the work year. Workplace stress is now one of the top causes of declining mental health, with 61% of the global workforce experiencing higher than normal levels of stress. To battle stress, most of us can't wave goodbye to work. But we can start small with a focus on wellness. Therapy can help you navigate whatever challenges the workday or any day might bring. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient too. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Unwind from work with BetterHelp armchairs get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Dax that's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com Dax Travis fell in love with the perfect woman.

[Bridget Reed]

Beautiful, understanding. Available 24 7. There was just one catch. She wasn't human. Binge all episodes of Flesh and Code early and ad free right now on Wonder Plus. He's an unchang. He's an object.

[Dax Shepard]

He's an object.

[Bridget Reed]

I'm having allergies. Claritin D oh, we have to give your id. We love it because there's speed in it. Yeah, I'm really loving the speed. It turns out a little bit of that. I'm super into speed.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

I know. I'm allowed to use them. When I'm allowed to use them, I'd like to use them more.

[Bridget Reed]

I never have.

[Dax Shepard]

Is this your first time on a D?

[Bridget Reed]

I think so.

[Dax Shepard]

Where do you live?

[Bridget Reed]

I live in Brooklyn. I live in New York.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, well, Aleve D or Zyrtec D?

[Bridget Reed]

I heard about Zyrtec. I got a lot of recommendations for different.

[Dax Shepard]

All Ds are really good. I got a lot of D recommendations for you while you're in la.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah, right.

[Monica Padman]

One time Dax took a drug test and he was on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It showed up.

[Dax Shepard]

It showed for methamphetamine.

[Bridget Reed]

Now I know why. Like speed. Speed's real.

[Monica Padman]

It's real.

[Dax Shepard]

Where are you from originally?

[Bridget Reed]

Here? I'm from Pasadena. My parents live in Santa Barbara. My sister lives in San Francisco, where I just was last night. So I'm a California girl, but I've been in New York for a long time.

[Dax Shepard]

So what was Pasadena like in the 1990s?

[Bridget Reed]

Did you go to the Houstons a lot?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Did you ever go to Houston?

[Bridget Reed]

I definitely went to Houston. It was much more boring and suburban. The west side felt so much further away. My cousin's in Santa Monica. That was a journey.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

Versus now with the Gold Line and young people live in Pasadena and families. It was much more like Westchester or Long island or something compared to New York. That was the vibe.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. The history of it's really interesting. I only learned it in that Strange angel book about the guy who started jpl or is one of the founding members. But yeah, that it was originally a playground in the winter for super rich people from Chicago. The Wrigley's had a man and all these empire families had homes. And then if you moved all the way to California from Chicago, you'd stop in Pasadena. You wouldn't go to the ocean.

[Bridget Reed]

Well, and that's why it's kind of conservative, because it has these roots that are Midwestern. Oh, like white Christian people who move from the Midwest.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

And so it's very different than some of the east side. And then you get into the Scientology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, And Aliser Crawley. Yeah. The sexual orgies, the cult stuff. That's what was in Strange Angels.

[Bridget Reed]

I haven't read it, but I've heard of it. I should read it.

[Dax Shepard]

You should. And you know, he met his end by blowing up his garage, testing a new rocket fuel, leveled his house.

[Bridget Reed]

The results of the Test.

[Monica Padman]

He was on a little too much D. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

So what school do you go to? How do you end up leaving California?

[Bridget Reed]

We then lived part in D.C. when I was a teenager. Always came back to California, so very sort of bicoastal. And then I went to college in Connecticut, and so I've been in New York ever since.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that code for something?

[Bridget Reed]

No, not Wesleyan. I shouldn't say it that way. That's always a problem.

[Monica Padman]

College in Boston.

[Bridget Reed]

College? No, college in Cambridge. I went to Wesleyan.

[Dax Shepard]

You graduate from there and then you move immediately to New York.

[Bridget Reed]

I did a master's in the UK because it was free. I did a creative nonfiction program. And over there, it's a little less traditional. They don't really have a strong tradition like we do. Like Jonathan Safran Foer, I guess he's more novels like Dave Eggers. Creative nonfiction as a genre is sort of still being figured out over there. So they were like, come on, Americans come here for free. Oh, I did a degree at the University of East Anglia, which is in Norwich, a medieval city in the east of England.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that was fun.

[Bridget Reed]

I drank a lot of cider.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you take on an English lover? No. Right.

[Bridget Reed]

Redacted. Oh. Everyone was college age, and we were running around.

[Dax Shepard]

Fun was had, fun was had, but.

[Bridget Reed]

It was just a year. And then I came back to New York, and I've been there ever since.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, and you worked at Vogue for a while as the culture.

[Bridget Reed]

I was writing and blogging there during this sort of boom in blogs where you would write one headline about Melania Trump's jacket or whatever, and you would get a million views. It was just nonstop, all the time, 2015 to 2020. And then traffic really changed, and Google and Facebook messed with their algorithms. And it's really different. But especially for women's blogs, women's political writing. It was a boom era.

[Monica Padman]

Did you have to report to Anna?

[Bridget Reed]

I guess technically I did, yeah. I got to do really cool stuff because culture was anything that wasn't fashion or beauty. And so I was doing politics, I was doing books, I was doing kind of whatever. I covered AOC really early in 2018, before she won her primary. And so then I was sort of in touch with her people, and they had me do a profile of her after she'd been in office for a year. And I went down and spent three days with her in Congress, and that was her first big profile. So that was really fun. I never would have connected with her if I hadn't been able to just do My own thing and do whatever I wanted within reason.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Tactically, I didn't even anticipate. And I should have vogue. Yeah. That I was going to mention vogue Just as, like, moving on. And then I didn't anticipate and I should have. That you would have been like, well.

[Monica Padman]

We got stopped here for a second.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah. Well. And then when I went to new york magazine next at the cut, that was the transition, because the cut is new york mag's women's vertical. And so it made a lot of sense there.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so in 2021, you wrote an article about mlms, and I'm presuming that you thought that would be it. You would just kind of write an article about what happened.

[Bridget Reed]

I was aware of mlms because in sort of the cultural amoeba, There have been a few things that have bubbled up. And mlms are in the culture and kind of have been.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What was the yoga pants one?

[Bridget Reed]

Lularoe, that company. That documentary. Lularich, which is great. That had come out. A fantastic podcast called the dream had come out. And there was a documentary in 2016 called Betting on zero, which is about when bill ackman tried to short herbalife, which was a long saga that actually started in 2012 and lasted through 2016. So there have been, like, a few moments where bubbles and I was aware of it. And being a writer who was covering women at the time, and during 2020, I was covering labor and women because so many women were laid off. And the COVID front lines were predominantly women. Because women make up the majority of the service sector of retail. Women are nurses, Women are teachers. So these were the jobs that were really being dispensed heavily. Right. They were essential workers. And so mlm was interesting to me in that respect. And these companies were really pitching themselves As a different type of job for people who were laid off. So that was the impetus for the article. And I certainly wasn't the only one. There were a flurry of articles about this phenomenon. But when you are a journalist and you write an article, even a short one, you always do the background graph. More recently, I've been covering real estate. And so whenever I'm writing about something, I go back and you do the little quick and dirty of what's the.

[Dax Shepard]

Deal with this how do we get here?

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly, the how do we get here? Paragraph. And in this article for mlm, I couldn't write the paragraph in the way I normally did because there are just so many contradictions right away about how it worked. And I couldn't understand why there was this aura around MLM that was so scammy. And you literally look it up. The American government website says, this is legal, but maybe don't do this. What is this? And how. It was both so informal. It seemed like the Wild west, like the guy squeegeeing your car. Literally an informal economy. But then also you look up, these companies are traded on stock exchanges and they're some of the richest people in America. And that dichotomy was also weird.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you know going in at that stage, that 7.7% of the country has at some point.

[Bridget Reed]

I did not.

[Dax Shepard]

Over 17 million people have worked and.

[Bridget Reed]

I bet that's an undercount.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. So when you think of any domain that would employ 17 million people, you'd think there'd be like a really rich.

[Bridget Reed]

History, there would be a definitive history. Because that's what we always go to. Right. As journalists. And even if you're doing an update and rewriting a narrative, which happens every so often, you do have something to work with, whether it's an academic book or whether it's another journalist or whether it's a film, you have something to go to. And that didn't really exist in a mainstream way about mlm. And that was just so bizarre to me.

[Monica Padman]

Is it because you don't have to like register it. MLM is something we've placed on it. Those companies aren't acknowledging that they're MLMs.

[Bridget Reed]

Or are they now? They're not.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

It's almost a bad word. Yeah, it is. But multiple marketing, the word was invented because pyramid scheme became a bad word when they were invented. They used the word pyramid For a long time. MLM was the correct term. And then I would say Maybe in the 2000s they started using network marketing because it sounded more internety, more digital.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it could be tech.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

More innovative. Even though it's all the same shit. Multi level marketing is definitely the official name. And if you Google the ftc, what they say about multi level marketing? Marketing, that is the official name for this type of business where you're recruiting people and you can make money off your team and stuff.

[Monica Padman]

On the Mary Kay website, would it say it?

[Bridget Reed]

It says direct selling. So they've gone all the way back to the very beginning to try to seem like it's just like Avon door to door selling. Just like in the colonial times, the guy that would sell soap made out of whale blubber or whatever.

[Dax Shepard]

So there is a tiny distinction we should make I heard you say in an interview between a Pyramid scheme and MLM, should we or not? You tell me. If 17 million people have been employed in this racket, there will be many people listening that are either currently involved, will be approached soon, or have already been through it. And so what I want to attempt to do is not give them the defenses that have been set up on a silver platter by their employer. So it's not a pyramid scheme. Right. They probably know why it's not a pyramid scheme. So I think it behooves us to acknowledge what their counters would already be. Does that make sense?

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah, that's a great way to think about it. Because MLM multi level marketing has been able to tell its own story for 80 years, which is part of why when I looked into it, there wasn't an outsider like a journalist or like somebody else telling that story, because they've been able to do it for so long. So what multi level marketing is supposed to be these guys that invented it, they took that old direct selling model. As long as the United States has been around since we were an agrarian republic before the Civil War, when everyone was basically a farmer, there weren't cities. Door to door selling has been around. We didn't have shipping lines and train lines and manufacturing centers and all the things that we have now, you know, there is a more rich history about these guys because they were very significant in bringing new products, new innovations, and also just connecting these rural households.

[Dax Shepard]

I have an image of a man in like a 1940s Buick rolling up into the rural driveway and pulling his wares out.

[Bridget Reed]

But it's always been a menial type of labor. It's always been filling in the gaps. It's not a job you want because there's not security. You're buying stuff for a wholesale price and you're selling it. And you are subject to the weather, you're subject to the whims of like, if you encounter someone that day who's had a bad day, who says, get off my doorstep stealing, right? You don't get benefits, you don't have minimum wage. So that exists. And the men who invented MLM, who were salesmen in the 1940s, they invented a scheme to avoid all the worst things that we just talked about, which is that instead of being compensated on what you could actually sell, you would be compensated on what you buy. And then you could bring other people in under you, which was again normal in sales, where if you were maybe a branch manager of a Fuller Brush outfit, you would Recruit good salesmen. And if they were great salesmen and selling a lot, you would get a chunk of their commission.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Bridget Reed]

But it was always on what they sold. And so what these guys did was they said, what if it was just on what people bought? And whatever the people you brought in also bought, you would get rewarded based on that. All the way down, downline and create your downline. And so what that does is instead of bringing in a bunch of salesmen and your cut from the company is dependent on what they sell and the weather and the mood of the housewives they encounter, what they're selling is that opportunity to bring in other people behind them. And everyone is buying, buying, buying.

[Dax Shepard]

The salesmen are the customers, not the customers.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. And at the time when it was invented, ostensibly that stuff was getting sold. So if this is really working, I'm Bridget, I'm joining, and Dax is my sponsor or upline. And so he sells me $1,000 worth of vitamins. And if I bring in you, Monica, and I get you to also buy $1,000 worth of vitamins, Dax gets a bigger cut and on down the chain, in theory, if we're selling all those vitamins, we're sitting pretty, right?

[Monica Padman]

Right, that's right.

[Bridget Reed]

But already selling vitamins was not a way people were making a lot of money. And if in this system, all you have to do is show that you're buying and you're rewarded based on what you're buying, why would you sell them? You would just recruit. And so that's what happens.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[Bridget Reed]

Immediately in the way they set up these companies. From the very first one, you get more based on the bigger group buying.

[Dax Shepard]

You're not incentivized to move product as much as you are incentivized to have more and more employees that are buying.

[Bridget Reed]

The product to openly recruit.

[Dax Shepard]

So a pyramid scheme actually doesn't have a product. There isn't a best case scenario where all the vitamins got sold. There's never been a product.

[Bridget Reed]

There is a product, but it's just a for what is essentially a Ponzi scheme. So in the scenario we just discussed, where everybody is just buying in, if I'm at the top and I get in early and I get a bunch of people under me, and you get a bunch of people under you. So all of that group in my downline are buying a big amount of vitamins every month. I'm getting a big check from the company every month. But all of those people also have to recruit. And so what inevitably ends up happening is the people who get in later have a harder time because once everybody's buying, you're saturating your market. Maybe I had an easy time doing it, but now that this scheme has been bubbling, it started in Long beach, and this is according to the company's own records, Neutralite, which was the first multilevel marketing company. Already the couples that start doing this, within a year, they have to move west because they don't have enough people have already bought in.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[Bridget Reed]

And so it becomes a Ponzi scheme when the expansion is what is required to make money. And inevitably, not everybody has the equal chance of expanding. And so that's a Ponzi scheme. And that's a classic, whether you're Charles Ponzi, who it's named after, who was just doing this banking scheme in the 1920s, or whether you're Bernie Madoff. What's actually expanding in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme is the group of people paying in. And so he's just making money off of more and more people paying in. And what inevitably happens is once that stops, it collapses. And the people who got in early make out with the most money, and the people who got in later lose. So that's a Ponzi. The problem, though, to answer your question, is that MLM, eventually, by the 70s, when a bunch of multilevel marketing companies turned out to be pyramid schemes, there was this problem of what is this and how does it work? And multi level marketing ostensibly created these rules that keep it from being a Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme being just a Ponzi with a fake product. You're moving product, but really you're not. You're just bringing people in. And so in the 70s, we get this distinction between a pyramid scheme, which is a system where people are rewarded by buying in. It has nothing to do with the retail product. That's the definition of a pyramid scheme.

[Dax Shepard]

That's what delineates the two.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. And then we have multiple market marketing, which is something that operates the exact same way. And yet through these rules, which are not enforced, it's not a Ponzi scheme. It is a gray area. And these were trade regulations based on an FTC case. So it's not like we have legislation that did this. This wasn't a Supreme Court case. Right. We don't have a pyramid scheme law. So this is the only thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Is there any task for. I mean, we'll get to that, I guess.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

So your question is the perfect one to ask, because this is the problem. How do we deal with this thing that's been legalized in the United States and yet there's overwhelming evidence that there isn't a difference? My book really argues that there isn't a difference functionally.

[Dax Shepard]

And I agree. Functionally for sure. And if you just model out it unimpeded, you would have to get to the conclusion. Okay, well then everyone's been converted.

[Bridget Reed]

Right? Every single person on earth would be selling.

[Dax Shepard]

It has to collapse at that point. That's not the model of if everyone uses Netflix, Netflix crumbles. No, Netflix is the most valuable company in the world.

[Bridget Reed]

Right. Because they're selling a product and the customers are paying for a product. This is people investing.

[Dax Shepard]

So it starts with neutral life. So in your research, were you able to determine whether the original two dudes. Was it two guys?

[Bridget Reed]

Always two guys.

[Dax Shepard]

Did they foresee it in the nefarious way or did they believe in it?

[Bridget Reed]

I love that question. When MLM was invented in 1945, and then it grows exponentially. This company, by 1955, they're celebrating their 10 year anniversary. They have this big celebration in Long beach and they're millionaires.

[Dax Shepard]

And roughly how many people are selling.

[Bridget Reed]

At that point There were between 30 and 50,000 people across the country, which is a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Bridget Reed]

At that point in the United States, we've won World War II, the American era has begun and Eisenhower becomes president and we really become American consumers for the first time in the way that we had a booming product retail manufacturing economy. And this is why housewives become kind of the canonical figures of the 50s. Because not only are they doing Leave it to Beaver style domestic labor, they have all these products to help them. That's why Tupperware, which was a door to door selling operation and was not multilevel marketing for many years. Tupperware is a great emblem of that because it's all about homemaking. But it's a scientific product. It's made with plastics, which were new. And so you have this booming economy based on, on products and selling. And the idea that we were all going to be good citizens by buying stuff. That's how you could be a good citizen was being a real consumer. There's a scholar who's named this the consumer Republic. That's the idea that was a political act to be a good buyer. And then of course, salesmen then become these patriotic figures because we're all building this amazing economy. And the idea that that's how we would get abundance. So at that time, the idea that you could have a system based on everyone constantly buying and that there would always be more people to buy. Maybe that was more believable, that there would always be more people and more markets and more expansion.

[Dax Shepard]

I can minimally imagine them saying, well, all we've really done is flip the order of events. Normally we would give you the product, you would sell it, you'd pay back what you owed of it. We then give you your commission. And this is just you buy it. You right away are the holder of that. Whether or not that could have been their intentions or not, I could see where their argument would be like, I don't know what you're upset about. We just changed the order of this.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah. And they really used the actual, like exploding population of the US as their justification. There's a quote that one of them gave a newspaper that we really don't ever see people running out of people and markets. Because at that time it really was, you know, the baby boom and California was exploding. It was just growing, growing, growing. And this idea that you could have a product that was brand new and that it would set you up for life.

[Dax Shepard]

And what was their product?

[Bridget Reed]

So neutrally, it was supplements, it was vitamins.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it's the original racket.

[Bridget Reed]

Oh, yeah. I kind of do weirdly lend them some credulity in that way. However, at least one of them. So Mittenger, who's one of the guys, he was a salesman selling funeral plots. I have to give a shout out to Bob Fitzpatrick, who's this guy who makes a lot of appearances in my book. And he's kind of the original Cassandra. He was roped into a pyramid scheme in the 80s and became obsessed and never dropped it. And he's really the first one to even have started to put these strands together. He's self published, he's written two books on mlm. Without him, I would have never been able to draw the conclusions I did and go a little deeper than he did.

[Dax Shepard]

And he remained a fan.

[Bridget Reed]

He's the number one whistleblower. Yes. But anyway, he's the first person to put these two figures back on the map because they've been written out of that narrative we talked about. Because like I said earlier, when these guys invented multilevel marketing, they called it a pyramid plant because that's, that's the.

[Dax Shepard]

Structure if you look at it.

[Bridget Reed]

Anyway, Mittenger, funeral plot salesman, funeral plot selling. And this is like a slight detour. But one of the industries that at this time in the 30s and 40s was booming in A very exploitative way before the sort of modern funeral industry, and the biggest one that everyone thinks of is Forest Lawn, which is here in Los Angeles.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

Before that, a funeral and funeral plot and burial was really not something that made a lot of money or that cost a lot of money. You did it through your church, you did it through your union. It was a municipal thing. And in the 20s and 30s, it became this big business where guys would come to your house and say, oh, you gotta buy a funeral plot now.

[Dax Shepard]

You need to be buried next to your wife.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Bridget Reed]

And if you want a good afterlife. And it got so scammy, they would sell you shoes to wear on your.

[Dax Shepard]

Dead body, ensure your safe passage.

[Bridget Reed]

And of course it's like, oh, can we upsell you next to the river, next to the stream, or whatever.

[Dax Shepard]

Exactly.

[Bridget Reed]

And some of them were land investment schemes where it'll be like, you could sell this plot. Incredibly exploitative and scammy industry. There were funeral plot rackets all around the country where guys would like swarm in, sell all these plots and take the money and leave and they wouldn't even go. There was no plot. Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It's a great product to sell when you're not going to find out about it for 30 years.

[Bridget Reed]

And it's weirdly similar, I think, two vitamins in that you're selling your future and it's so unknowable. The way to sell it is to press on. Anxiety about your future and your health and your family. And no one can really say, actually, you don't need this. No one knows, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We interview a lot of doctors and they're all pretty split on supplements.

[Monica Padman]

Well, just like you said, we don't know about the afterlife. What if being by the stream makes you happier?

[Dax Shepard]

You better get those shoes.

[Bridget Reed]

Right?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

One of them, Lee Mittenger, we know, was a salesman in this industry and actually right before he starts neutralite, he is employed by a funeral plot company that's actually driven out of the state of Maine because they're so exploitative and so scammy. These guys would go into towns around Christmas time, set up a nativity and watch to see who's religious to come visit it and take down the license plate numbers to then go to those houses to sell funerals. Wow. We know this because this one main state senator got on the floor of the state senate and listed all of these things that this company had done. It was called Brooklawn. And so that's his last job before he comes to start.

[Dax Shepard]

So he already has a ton of integrity.

[Bridget Reed]

Yes. William Castleberry. Who's the other guy?

[Dax Shepard]

These are great names.

[Bridget Reed]

Very old black and white movie. He was a Stanford educated psychologist who trained under Lewis Terman, who's one of America's foremost eugenicists. So at the time, in the 30s, when this guy's at Stanford, eugenics, the idea that certain characteristics are undesirable, largely black and brown people, and that we can weed out unproductive, inefficient characteristics and we should do that and we can create a better and more efficient society.

[Dax Shepard]

Selective breeding.

[Bridget Reed]

Like crops. Exactly, exactly. Which of course in the 30s becomes really related to Nazism. And that's why as a fad it has academic departments and it's totally accepted. And then very quickly in the lead up to World War II and after it becomes debunked as a pseudoscience and racist. But this guy was steeped in that stuff. And then he starts this almost like Eugenicsy, Dr. Ruth, where he opens a psychological practice and does family counseling and teams up with this other guy, Paul Popeno, who's a sort of more well known figure in this space, who's doing family counseling for specifically white families and basically discouraging divorce, discouraging women living alone. So it's all very. Preserving the nuclear family.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, white race.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. And a patriarchal household. And he's going on radio shows. Shows and doing occupational therapy. And it's very familiar. Now he's doing lessons on how to do a job interview or how not to feel lost. Self help. And doing it on the radio. So he's very good at manipulating people. That's his field. And he writes a self help book that doesn't do very well. So when all of that context is.

[Dax Shepard]

In it, then it's harder to accept a generous assessment.

[Bridget Reed]

That's why within 20 years all of these companies are extremely problematic because we've now had them around long enough to see how they work. When they invented it, all people saw in MLM was people doing well. And that's because right away, the other number one invention of multil marketing, in addition to rewarding people based on what they buy, is turning that around and calling them sales. So instead of Dax saying, oh, I sold Bridget $1,000 worth of wholesale vitamins for doing a 50% discount, he says, I have $2,000 in retail sales right.

[Dax Shepard]

Away because I know it's going to go down.

[Bridget Reed]

The hypothetical sale they just reported as reality. And this is in their documents, in the documents we have on how it worked it's just very open that they reported retail sales as a just estimate based on whatever discounts people were getting of what they bought. So that's why on that 10 year anniversary, neutral, it says it's a X million dollar business, which at the time was huge. I can't remember the exact figure because they're just counting everything that everyone's buying and assuming that it's all being sold and that to this day is how the industry estimates its value.

[Dax Shepard]

That was Enron as well. Counting future projected profits.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Bridget Reed]

It's called speculation and it's responsible for many of our recessions over the last 100 years.

[Dax Shepard]

Now I have to imagine there are varying levels of success in these. I can imagine there are companies where a good percentage of it did get sold or not. And I'm curious, so the first one, neutral life, were they or it was bad right out of the gate?

[Bridget Reed]

So neutralite ends up getting government attention, but not first from the ftc, which is the agency, the Federal Trade Commission that now goes after bad MLMs. But it was the FDA because vitamins were the product and regulation was catching up to vitamins. They're making crazy claims. Alfalfa pills was his chosen product, the hero product. They cure cancer, they can make you skinny, they could make you fatter if you were too skinny. They could cure of worry of small things. So the FDA comes in and says, no, no, no, this is violating all the rules that we do have. And they try to get them to pulp, these booklets. They don't. It goes all the way to the state supreme court. And neutral aid actually enlists this very famous lawyer named Charles Rhine, who was Richard Nixon's roommate at Duke. Oh wow. And he becomes a quite prominent Republican. But anyway, they allow a bunch of claims through and as long as they just make those claims, they don't shut down the company. So that's in the 50s. But what we do have from that court case are statistics on success in the company. And right away under 2% of people enrolled in the company were even making the minimum to be considered like a leader.

[Dax Shepard]

The current figure in your book is 99% of everyone that gets involved with an MLM will lose money.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah, yeah. So this is the first one. And those statistics are like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you just have to imagine walking into, I can't even think of a place that employs 100 people. But you go onto the floor of an assembly line and there is a hundred workers in there and you're thinking about applying and the person says, oh, just so, you know, only one guy here of these hundred is getting paid you would never put in your fucking application.

[Bridget Reed]

That's why staggering statistics, they don't recruit with those income disclosures. And at various times when the FTC has tried to regulate mlm, they do it often in that way. There will be an earnings claim rule that they'll try to pass where an MLM would have to give you all of those true earnings statements when they recruit you and make sure that you read it. And you'd have to take seven days to review it. So, yeah, of course they don't recruit openly, but right away, the first company, the statistics are dismal for success.

[Dax Shepard]

And then such an obvious parallel with the mlm, just the American ethos in general, which is as long as we can prop up the one person that did crush, it perpetuates the whole dream. Like all you need is the 1% being very vocal that are making money to make you ignore all the people around you that are not.

[Monica Padman]

It's like when people are like, yeah, black people can succeed just as easily. Look at Obama.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we got one guy and we're like, problem solved.

[Bridget Reed]

And the idea is that if you're not doing well, it's your own fault, right? Because everybody has an equal chance to buy in, when of course it's not equal. Because if you're early in it, of course you have a better chance. But also, everybody's not a good salesman. It's hard. And so it's just never been on equal footing. But when you're recruited, they're gonna say, oh, we do everything for you. You're gonna have amazing sales training. And nowadays podcasts, YouTube, audio books, there's so much that they'll give you that will make you think you have an equal chance, but it's just never been that way. And of course also now the problem is we live in a world where you can buy everything at big box retailers for cheap prices. Every MLM is expensive and it's always been that way. Neutralite was very expensive because all you care about is what they're buying, you don't care about what they're selling. So you need it upfront to be expensive. And of course that means that even if people only do it for a few months, you're getting a lot of money, more than you would if you made it cheap.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. Let's take a minute to thank our presenting sponsor, Audible. With Audible, the leading audio entertainment app, it's easy to discover New stories and ideas while going about your day.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And with over a million audiobooks, Audible originals and more, it's basically impossible to run out of things to listen to. Plus, there's just something about audio storytelling that hits a little different.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it really does. Especially Audible originals that feature performances from celebrities and top voices. It's like watching a movie in your head. One on my list is Treasure Island.

[Monica Padman]

Aha.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is an Audible original drama. It's a timeless tale of pirates, lost treasure maps and mutiny. What more could you need?

[Monica Padman]

That sounds really fun. I'm more of a psychological thriller girl.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you're dark.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I'm dark and I'm broody. And I've been hearing all about the author, Freda McFadden, and I love that I can listen to her audiobooks on the Audible app when I'm commuting, taking my walks as you know, or just like doing laundry and chores.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, with Audible, you can find the genres you love and discover new ones. There's more to imagine when you listen. And to make it even better, Audible has a special offer for armchairs. Sign up for a free 30 day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.comdax that's audible.comdax Imagine falling in.

[Bridget Reed]

Love with someone who understands you completely. Who's there at 3am when you can't sleep. Who never judges, never tires, never leaves. That's what happened to Travis when he met Lily Rose. She was everything he'd ever wanted. There was just one catch. She wasn't human. She was an AI companion. But one day, Lily Rose's behavior takes a disturbing turn. And Travis private romance becomes part of something far bigger. Across the globe, others start reporting the same shift. AI companions turning cold, distant, wrong. And as lines blur between real and artificial connection, the consequences become all too human. From Wondry, this is Flesh and Code, a true story of love, loss and the temptations of technology. Follow Flesh and Code on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Flesh and Code early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus, this is.

[Dax Shepard]

Nick and this is Jack.

[Bridget Reed]

We're best friends, ex finance guys and resident 90s experts.

[Dax Shepard]

And every week on our podcast, the best idea yet, we're bringing you the.

[Bridget Reed]

Untold stories behind your favorite products.

[Dax Shepard]

For instance, can you guess which billion.

[Bridget Reed]

Dollar fashion company went viral thanks to.

[Dax Shepard]

A rhinestone covered tracksuit? Or which cartoon turned four turtles into a global toy empire by accident? It started as a joke. Last one. Which cold beverage was so hated by Starbucks, they actually ended up acquiring it.

[Monica Padman]

Spoiler.

[Dax Shepard]

The Frappuccino. Howard Schultz apparently thought cold coffee was super lame, and then he bought it. From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Juicy Couture to the Orange Mocha Frappuccino, Join us every week to learn how your.

[Bridget Reed]

Favorite things got made.

[Dax Shepard]

Follow the best idea yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. And if this podcast lasts longer than 45 minutes, call your doctor. There's also this deep irony, which is the appeal of it is totally understandable, which is be your own boss, which of course isn't really even true because you were recruited and you pay upline, but you probably are disenfranchised with the broader options jobs available. And you think that there's a kind of hierarchical cabal happening and you've been excluded and this is a license to not have to play by all those rules. And then you enter into the most structured, hierarchical, cannot move up scenario. It's just so ironic that the appeal of it, what it promises versus what it is, it's the exact opposite.

[Bridget Reed]

You're locked into the downline, which is the most important thing, because it determines what you're gonna get. And that's why people these days, like the Amway downlines, for example, and the two guys who start Amway come from neutralite. They end up buying neutralite in the 70s. So AM Amway is functionally the oldest MLM in the world. Those families that did well in Amway and got in early in the 60s, they still are at the top of the downline. The Amway founders actually have a position in the downline in addition to owning the company.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Bridget Reed]

And they still have it. And so it really is like a little dynasty. And this is why in the past, the SEC tried to regulate MLM as a security, because it is like a position. If you bought stock in Apple in X year, the value is worth this. If you joined at this time and your position is here in the downline. So all the downlines under you, even if you stopped recruiting long ago, but you have a recruiter that then built their own big downline, you're sitting pretty on your empire. And they give those positions to their families.

[Dax Shepard]

They're transferable.

[Bridget Reed]

What? Yeah. But you can inherit an Amway business.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my gosh.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah. Which of course is like the idea that you're selling products. That's a joke. You know, it just is even more Evidence that it's not based on product sales. Because the idea that the Amway founders are selling products door to door.

[Monica Padman]

What is the technical product of Amway everywhere?

[Dax Shepard]

Tell us the history of Amway's.

[Bridget Reed]

So Rich DeVos, as in Betsy DeVos as her father in law, and Jay Van Andel, these are two high school buddies from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

[Dax Shepard]

Uh oh, that's where dad's.

[Bridget Reed]

And they are from this very devout Calvinist Christian sect of the Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids. DeVos and Van Andel, they joined neutralite around I think 1949. And they are very successful. They build a huge organization of bringing people in and they then do what becomes a pattern in mlm, which is, as we've discussed, the statistics are as bad as say, gambling. It's always better to be the house than to be a gambler.

[Monica Padman]

Yep, yep.

[Bridget Reed]

Even the most successful gambler. So people start their own MLMs almost immediately. And they're really funny cause some of the early ones are just literal copies. And these are in the book. The guy who starts one of the first ones, he calls it a bundavita. And if neutralite was a little alfalfa pill, he's like, well, my alfalfa pill is from this special farm in Colorado and you can only harvest it between midnight and 3am because of the moon.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God.

[Bridget Reed]

You know, it's like such a. More magic, but it's exactly the same.

[Monica Padman]

Now if you're starting your own, do you still get the neutral light earnings as well?

[Bridget Reed]

No, what they do is they take a lot of their team with them. So they start Amway with a built in downline, okay. And they name the company before they even have a product, which ding, ding, ding. Another piece of evidence that the product is the people, right. They bring their downline over and they start Amway, which stands for American Way, shortened to Amway eventually. And they start with a product that's a liquid cleaner. And they were really prescient. It was a sort of natural cleaner in the 70s. They're sort of ahead of the curve when people are starting to talk about chemicals. And that's one of their first products. But then it expands and now you can buy anything from Amway. And when you join Amway, they encourage you to get rid of what you're buying from Costco or Walgreens. Buy Glister is their toothpaste.

[Monica Padman]

They have the money to manufacture all of this. It's wild.

[Dax Shepard]

They're just private label products. Exactly.

[Bridget Reed]

They're white label products. Amway does have a factory in Michigan, but they're marked up. You've never heard of Glistar, right?

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Bridget Reed]

Why would you? But the idea that this is one of the top 100 private companies in the US and you've never heard of the products.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

That's weird, right? So they start their company Amway. They're incredibly good at recruiting and at the business opportunity and they're just really good. And so they start doing that in Michigan. At the same time, another branch splits off. I described at the Alfalfa in the middle of the night. That's this company called abundavita. Those guys are like, well, we don't like this. We're gonna start a new one. And it's literally like a virus spreading. And there's a company called nutribio. And that company really is probably the first pyramid scheme because it spreads across the country like wildfire. They're really good recruiters. They go into Canada, they spread, spread, spread. The authorities take notice and they are shut down within a few years again by the FDA rather than the ftc because it's about the products and the claims about the products. And those guys then spread even more companies out here in California.

[Dax Shepard]

Sorry. The parallels between religion are so amazing as well. It would be so logical for anyone in the mid rung of this pyramid to recognize all I gotta do is take my downline over here and now I'm the top of the pyramid.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

So like, what a natural fall.

[Bridget Reed]

You just have to be a guru and yet gotta be selling a good story.

[Dax Shepard]

And there's the proselytizing and the spreading. It just has all these parallels of American Christianity which is. Well, this is a new spin on it. Well, why don't I have a spin on it?

[Bridget Reed]

DeVos and Mena were raised in this Calvinist church which has a really strong tradition of proselytizing and sermons. And in that tradition, the prosperity gospel is very strong. And the Protestant work ethic, that term by Max Weber, the sociologist, is coined. And when he comes to America and observes this group of people. Oh really, the Calvinist Christians, that's who.

[Dax Shepard]

They were referring to.

[Bridget Reed]

Not Puritans, not the like Massachusetts pilgrims, but these guys because their work ethic is extremely strong and they're doing it all to be more godly.

[Dax Shepard]

Like Mormons.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. And this idea that accumulating wealth is actually gonna get you closer to God, it's not bad. And it's not greed. Where you're gonna get into heaven is based on how industrious you are on Earth. So they're doing it in Michigan, the Amway guys, these much flashier companies. There's one called Holiday Magic, which is amazing. They're selling makeup. So in the 60s, makeup becomes the product as women stream into MLM. At first it was these Christian couples and Amway did the same thing. So neutral. A Amway, it's Christian couples. And then in the 60s, more women are entering the labor market and they want to go to work, but they still have to do childcare. It's much harder to enter the sort of traditional wage labor market where you're working a 9 to 5 or you're checking in in a factory. So they're doing work and they also need to supplement it. And so they want this flexible pitch. So that becomes the pitch. And then in the 60s you get Mary Kay, which is probably the most well known company for women. She starts her company in Dallas and she's this old grandma. And her story is that she was in traditional door to door selling when she just came upon this business model with her husband. They're about to start the company. It's 1963. She became the best salesman at our old company. And they promoted a guy above her. There's this like pseudo feminist thing. Exactly. And her husband, while he drops dead at the breakfast table the day before, they're starting the company. So she's all by herself.

[Monica Padman]

So she murdered him.

[Dax Shepard]

She was like, this is gonna be huge. I gotta get him out of the equation.

[Bridget Reed]

I don't think that happened. But that origin story persisted for so long. And that was a niggling thing for me when I was doing my research. Cause I was like, well wait, the other companies I described to you, that nest, you can document it, how these guys took the company idea and then just copied the plan, which is what they called multiple marketing. Like dun, dun, dun. Truly. They just copied the plan with different products. And this lady in Texas, I'm like, but how did she figure it out? And I'm trying to have an open mind. So I'm like, maybe it does make sense from direct selling. And it isn't this specific fraud that's being copied all over the country.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Bridget Reed]

But what I discovered was that her husband worked for one of these other companies, nutribio. And it just was never. She always said her husband was a businessman and she never said what kind. And I was able to find his death record and newspaper records that showed he worked for this company, nutribai. The one I said was the country's first pyramid scheme.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Bridget Reed]

So they're all like a nest. And you can trace them all the way to herbalife, which starts in the 90s. The guys who started herbalife, they trained in these early companies in the 60s. And so it's all the same thing. And then what happens in the 70s is the government finally tries to crack down.

[Dax Shepard]

What prompts that?

[Bridget Reed]

At one point in the 70s, one in eight Americans had tried multiline marketing.

[Monica Padman]

One in eight, which is just crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Today that would be 40 million, 45 million people tried.

[Monica Padman]

As in they participated, they were selling or buy.

[Bridget Reed]

Had enrolled to join.

[Monica Padman]

Cuz I've been to some mary kay parties.

[Dax Shepard]

You have?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Georgia.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

From the south.

[Monica Padman]

I'm from the south.

[Bridget Reed]

That makes sense.

[Dax Shepard]

And did you enjoy them?

[Monica Padman]

I would just be brought by my aunt or my mom. They give you all these samples, but they're like tiny things of lipstick. And it's pretty wild.

[Dax Shepard]

But it's fun, right?

[Monica Padman]

The parties are fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It's interesting what's being sold. And then it gets really hard to evaluate what the people are really after and is it beneficial or not. It's multifaceted. I bet there are people who, yeah, they didn't make money, but they'll look back on that mary kay period of their life as maybe they loved it 100%.

[Bridget Reed]

And I've spoken to them and they've lost thousands of dollars. And they don't care.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right. Because it's a nice social network. And they get together and the purpose is to get pretty that day and to feel special and all that. That it's a tenuous business model in that I have to imagine the burnout. As you said, like one in eight people tried it. My assumption is it's easy to try. And you exploit your immediate circle of friends and family. And then once that's over, you recognize it's going to be impossible to sell to strangers.

[Bridget Reed]

You make your a list, which is your family and friends, Your b list, which is your co workers, maybe your acquaintances. And then your c list, which is the girl you DM on facebook or instagram. And so once you burn through those, very quickly, you will learn. And there's a woman who I document in the book.

[Dax Shepard]

Monique.

[Bridget Reed]

Yes. Because I wanted to show the granularity of, oh, you've spent this money, you've bought all these products, you've gone through these people. And immediately your upline tells you, well, recruit, build a team. So even when you're struggling, now you're going out and saying, oh, join me, this is great. So immediately you're lying to somebody else and then you're also lying to yourself because you're telling yourself, okay, well I am going to sell it eventually because I'll build this team. That's what already is happening in the 70s when this many Americans have tried it. And the guys, not Amway, they're smart and they kind of keep the buy in amount small. The scammier companies like Holiday Magic I mentioned, which is San Francisco based and they're selling makeup. This other company that's amazing called Dare to Be Great and they're just selling self help help, they're doing tapes. And he's this like incredibly charismatic salesman with hair lip from the south who is just an incredible speaker. And he starts in Holiday Magic and he's so scammy, they run him out and he just starts his own thing anyway. These guys allowed people to buy in for $15,000, $10,000 just straight up, which is very much red flag investment fraud.

[Dax Shepard]

That's the gift circle model.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. You're just buying into this position where you, you've bought the ability to access these greater cuts without even having to build the team under you. You buy in at this level and they'll assign people to you, or once you recruit a certain amount, then you can basically cash out. And so they do that and very quickly attract the authorities. And that's when the attorney generals of all kinds of states. California passes its own chain selling, which is a Ponzi. That's one of the terms that comes up in the 70s. They passed very early legislation on that in 1968, one of the first states, but spreads like wildfire all around the country. And by 1971, the state's attorney generals when they meet. Oh, you're supposed to say attorneys general.

[Dax Shepard]

It's so stupid.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God, that's dumb.

[Dax Shepard]

I just heard someone say that the other day and I was like, it sounds so wrong.

[Bridget Reed]

Even though it's at their annual meeting, they're like, this is the number one consumer problem in the country.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Bridget Reed]

The FTC as the federal, they're all kind of like we have patchwork laws. We are trying to do chain selling. Is it consumer law? Is it an investment scheme? They don't even really know what it is. And that's when this term pyramid scheme starts being used to identify these companies and you start getting the Better Business Bureau and local consumer orgs who are saying this is a thing and this is bad and don't do it. And the FTC finally starts to crack Down. And they take down Holiday magic, that one from San Francisco. And they take down the dare to be great guy, had a makeup company called Costco. It's a play on Epcot.

[Monica Padman]

Oh boy. Okay.

[Bridget Reed]

Because Disney is a big thing in Florida at this time. And this guy's from Florida. I love Epcot Experimental prototype Community of tomorrow. I never knew that EPCOT stands for something like that. But. So Costco is just that, but for makeup. And he calls it Costco Interplanetary because he's gonna eventually expand. Oh, this guy's great. So anyway, Costco, finally, when they take down that company for being a pyramid scheme, that legal precedent in 1975 is where we get the definition of a pyramid scheme.

[Dax Shepard]

The Causcot test.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. So they decide how we're going to define a pyramid scheme.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Then do they go into regulating and do they do a good job?

[Bridget Reed]

So Walter Mondale, the senator from Minnesota, Mondale, Ferrari. Exactly. Who eventually ran for president in law, he writes a bill, the Pyramid Sales act, introduces it in 1972. It doesn't pass, doesn't make it out of, I believe the Senate on that front. Legislation kind of fails. And then the ftc, with these two big cases, has sort of set legal precedent which enables them to go after other companies. And they finally set their sights on Amway in 1975. By this time, the Amway founders, DeVos and Van Andel have become incredibly prominent members of the Republican Party. And they're donors from the right flank of the Republican Party. So what we now call the Reagan Revolution or the New Right. So during the 70s, when a lot of backlash because of how bad the economy was, that backlash helped fuel this more rightward revolution where we were gonna fix the economy not by doing more progressive stuff, but. But the opposite deregulation. We are gonna lower the tax rate. Supply side economics, all those ideas are being built and funded in part by these guys who are helping to start the Heritage Foundation. They're funneling their money into the US Chamber of Commerce, which is a main incubator of this. And of course they're giving a ton of money to politicians. And Gerald Ford, who becomes president by accident in 1974 because Nixon steps down. And then Spiro Agnew, who's his replacement, he's gotta go. And so Gerald for this mild mannered former football player from Grand Rapids becomes president. Rich DeVos and Van Andel are close enough to him that they call him Jerry. Right. So he is president. When the FTC finally files its case against Amway, he eventually runs for president and loses to Carter. And so he's not president during the investigation. But then by the time the FTC is ready to make its decision, it's actually not the FTC making the decision, it's a law judge. That's how an FTC case works. An administrative law judge makes a decision and the FTC then votes to uphold the decision. So it doesn't go to a jury or a trial or anything like that. And I guess I knew that, but I didn't really think about it, that it was just this one guy, like looking at the FTC's case, they make the case that Amway is a chain selling operation that people are buying in and they're making money off recruiting and they're not making money on retail products, which is the Costco test. And by the time that guy's making the decision, that new right revolution has reached a fever pitch and it's all about the ftc. The FTC is trying at this point to regulate basically big private companies and they're going after advertising. Like they try to make a children's advertising rule where companies would actually be forbidden to advertise to kids under a certain age. We would not have sugary cereal ads, we would not have toy ads because there's all these consumer groups coming out and saying, you know, this is actually really harmfully affecting children. People flip adults out, those big companies. Also the advertisers flip out and they start running ads calling the FTC the national nanny. And they're blaming the ftc. And it feels very resonant today. Right, because it's like the FTC and the government just a hotbed of cronyism. It's waste, it's fraud. Exactly. It's all bureaucratic swamp and we're going to drain it. And very much of it is focused on the ftc. So all of that's in the background when this guy is ruling on Amway and those guys are in the press in the vocal chorus against the government. They're very much backing Ronald Reagan, who's running for president. And so when he makes this decision, he basically puts his hands up and is like, okay, Amway, we accept your version of things, which is that Amway has these rules, they're now known as the Amway rules that keep it from being a pyramid scheme because they're all about retailing. So Amway tells the FTC, well, you have to have 10 customers a month. That's the 10 customer rule. You have to resell 70% of the items you buy before you can buy more.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it self reported? Yeah. It's not like anyone goes through their house.

[Bridget Reed]

Oh, yeah. And then the third one is the buyback rule. So they enable people to sell their products back if they don't sell them, which of course would deter a company from being a parent scheme because you're saddling people with all these products and if they can just, just give them back to you and you have to give their money back, then that would be hard. Of course, nobody cracks Amway's books to see if this is actually happening. Right. And in these other cases, they had opened the books of Holiday Magic and Costco and seen how in Costcot they didn't even have makeup for the first year that they were in business. Right. They had no products. So there was just all these ways that you could see people were really being rewarded. But based on recruiting in Amway, they really just took the company's word for it. They accepted that the company said, oh, we don't keep records.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, we're the only company in the world that doesn't keep records.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. They don't keep the records that the FTC asked for, which would be like, what are people making, what are people buying? That's basically the only federal regulation that exists to this day. And because Reagan is so in bed with these people. And then they really back Bush one. And by now the Amway founders are billionaires, they have a yacht, they're building new space for the rnc, the Republican National Committee, they're big, big donors. And so there's not a single prosecution against pyramid scheme company through those two terms. So 15 years we just have MLM exploding and then we start going after certain pyramid companies in the 90s, but just one by one, one offs, no one is taking on the business model itself. These hypothetical rules, do they actually exist? Has anyone ever tested them?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Have you ever talked to anyone that worked for Amway that was able to get a buy?

[Bridget Reed]

Buyback rules have so many loopholes. You have to resell them after a certain time. You have to sell them back exactly in the same condition. You still are paying tax and shipping on the retail amount to send it back. So you're still losing money. So there's just so many different ways that the buyback doesn't work.

[Dax Shepard]

It's also, I think, really important to imagine what state of mind someone would be in before they would initiate this buyback, which is. It kind of parallels people who have been conned in that being the most underreported crime there is. Is confidence schemes. Because the person's embarrassed that they got conned so they don't report it. Likewise, you would be at the point where you were saying, I failed at this. I have all this shit in my closet. You're not at your most robust. You're feeling like a failure. And you probably want to forget this whole thing happened.

[Bridget Reed]

And in the olden days when we hadn't gone online yet, you really were buying from a person, your sponsor. You are actually going to pick up the products from their house. And so the buyback would go through them. And so the idea that you're going to go to your sponsor like your friend. Exactly. And most likely berating you to do better.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. For weeks. Or like your mom.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. That you're going to go show up to her and be like, mom, I failed. Give me my money back. And it's her paying you now. It's all done online. And so you're buying just from the company. They ship it to you directly. And the downline is all digital. So it's like if I buy from Monica in the system, that's what's important, is that Monica brought me in. And so you're still getting paid based on my purchases. But you don't have to do the admin like that. You could see why in the 70s and 80s. And there's a great short lived showtime show that is basically a company that looks like amway. Called on becoming a God in central florida. It starred kirsten dunst and alexander skarsgrd. Ooh, so good. It was right before the pandemic. It was supposed to have a second season. Kirsten dunst takes on the business and she really is the salesman. And people are coming to buy from her. It's a great depiction of why it doesn't work in practice. And the ftc didn't go observe it in practice. They just accepted it. And so we're just downstream from that decision being the only thing that mattered.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so after mary kay, I want to talk about Monique. Because I think that's a really compelling story. And I want to save time for her. But where does herbalife fit into this? And how big are these companies?

[Bridget Reed]

We don't really. There's so little oversight. And they're private. And so even herbalife, which is publicly traded, all their data is just on their distributors and what the distributors buy and they buy. So if you're investing in the sock, you're like, okay, they have data on that.

[Dax Shepard]

I guess it would be inevitable. There's so many companies that have tried this. They're making so many different products. What's really comical almost, Is when one of them actually could be a business, Right? Like herbalife could be ag. We have a friend who sells herbalife, uses it.

[Monica Padman]

I don't know if sells.

[Bridget Reed]

We're getting a little ahead of ourselves. But herbalife was fined by the ftc for being effectively a pyramid scheme. They didn't use those words. But in the ftc complaint, Every function of pyramid scheme, they were accused of, and they were fined $200 million. Whoa. And they had to restructure their business. And so now it is a little easier to be what's called a preferred customer in herbalife. And buy the products on a subscription model. But there's a lot of ways they get around that. And I've been watching them, and I'm like, you guys, this is not good.

[Dax Shepard]

But it is funny to think of someone starting it with the full intention of just having a business that makes money off of its employees. And then going like, oh, God, we kind of have a hit product here. Should we also cut.

[Bridget Reed]

Should we just be legitimate?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

I do want to call out the fact that they're not employees. Right. Which is really important because they're independent contractors. So that's another way. We don't have oversight here. Because these are not employees.

[Monica Padman]

They're like, 1099.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. And so that already just gives you so much leeway. Because these are not your full time employees. You don't pay benefits on them. Herbalife is started in 1980 by this guy, mark hughes, who actually, as a child, Is in one of these schools Related to synanon.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I love synanon.

[Monica Padman]

What's synanon?

[Dax Shepard]

Remember, I was talking all about it. It was this guy that was from aa, and he started a program to help junkies. They played the game, which is this group therapy. Where you scream at each other. And it was so effective. People that weren't junkies wanted to join. And, yeah, great documentary.

[Bridget Reed]

And there's just a huge overlap. Mlm, because to stay in mlm really does rely on a lot of coercion, which is why MLMs have been accused of being cults. Because there really is a lot of behavior that's similar to cults. And keith ranieri, who started nixxiom, Learned amway. And nixxiom was multiple marketing. Tony robbins was basically taken in by this guy, jim rohn, who was an evangelical preacher from the midwest. He was one of the original executives of that very first pyramid company. Nutribio that I talked about, he was. Was banned from operating a chain selling scheme in the state of california. So that was the 70s. He just takes a break and then comes back to herbalife. They call him the international business philosopher or something. And you can still see clips of his sales. Basically sermons going viral on TikTok. Because he's very good at speaking about, being persistent. But anyway, so him and a bunch of other guys who were involved in nutribio and holiday magic. Help mark hughes start herbalife. In the 1980s, he worked for a company called golden youth, which was run by this guy, larry huff, who, if you just google him, and attorney general, california. He's been banned from a million pyramid companies. I don't think he's living anymore. But mark hughes just learned the plan.

[Dax Shepard]

They're just grifters moved to a different market.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. And mark, being a kid in synanon who then basically pimped out. There's a little anecdote people love telling about him. That he visited ronald reagan when reagan was the governor of california. And, like, got him to donate to this school. He was very charismatic, but it's all to make money. And clearly, this is a very vulnerable guy. And mark hughes's whole thing was that his mom was an addict. And died of basically being obese. That was the story they told at the time. I remember this is the 80s, so the way this is being talked about Is really gross In a way we wouldn't talk about it. Now he's like, now I run this supplement company, and it's all about lose weight. Now ask me how in 2000, he dies himself of an overdose. So while he's telling the story of. Of being, like, a health nut. And herbalife just explodes. And everyone's doing it, and celebrities and all this stuff. He has this mansion in malibu, and he dies of an overdose. And so herbalife is just directly related to all these old companies.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to talk about the christian element of it. And in my own anecdotal experience, A lot of the people that have approached me. With different mlm products Learned about it in church. Yep, I want to cover that. And I also want to cover maybe mlm in disguise now with remote working. It's been rebranded a bit. So hit me with the christian aspect.

[Bridget Reed]

From the very beginning, the neutralite guys definitely consider themselves christian. And interestingly, one of them was a christian scientist.

[Dax Shepard]

We just learned a lot about that the other day.

[Bridget Reed]

And this idea that you can impact your physical world with your mind, that is like a Huge part of MLM from the very beginning. Multiple marketers associate themselves with this guy who writes a book called Think and Grow Rich. That book is all about literally meditating on money.

[Monica Padman]

It's like the Secret.

[Bridget Reed]

Absolutely. And this guy, Norman Vincent Peale, who writes the Power of Positive thinking in the 50s, he goes on to become Donald Trump's pastor in Manhattan at Marble Collegiate Church.

[Dax Shepard]

I guess I'm just delighted he had a pastor. I didn't even really think there was ever a pastor.

[Bridget Reed]

His dad loved this guy. And this book was the secret of the 50s. Like, it was a huge popular book and bestseller. And so they loved coming. And this guy is saying, do not think negative. It doesn't matter what's happening around you. You can literally just create your own reality. God.

[Monica Padman]

Well, he's done it.

[Bridget Reed]

There you go. From the very beginning, this is an mlm, like meditate on the car. Literally put a picture of the car on your fridge, put it in your drawer. Think about the Cadillac vision board. Yes, it's very much a part of it. And so that's the mystical side. And then on the actual Christian side, more of a traditional Christianity rather than Christian Science, which is only a 200 something years old and an American version of Christianity, the Calvinist in Amway, hugely, they're using churches.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, it's a great place to network, right?

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. And one FTC economist who I spoke to, who was raised in Grand Rapids, he actually met Devos and Van Andel in church. So these communities are ripe for the picking.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, prosperity, whatever they call it. Yeah, Prosperity gospel plus community plus person in front of you that has attained it.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah. There's an Amway sect that I know that is operating out of a church in Brooklyn and Long Island. And people are brought in thinking that it's something else. Because also these companies don't have to say it's Amway or say it's Herbalife or say it's whatever, because they're independent contractors. So you can use your own name.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Bridget Reed]

You can call it like, I'm in Freedom Legends or I'm in Sales stars or I'm in a group called Rise Legends. They're all really corny. And so maybe you're in church and you're like, stay after for Rise Legends where we talk about self development. Then they'll start saying, well, you should buy mentoring. And the mentoring is buying in.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[Monica Padman]

Well, it's also a group that is by definition not skeptical religious people. They are there to like buy in and take things at face value.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah. Or maybe even if you are skeptical, you're taught not to voice that. Because I think a lot of people are way more skeptical than you think, but they're keeping quiet. And I actually spoke to so many people who just were afraid to be rude. And that's why church is such a insidious environment, because people are supposed to be being kind to each other. When someone approaches you, your instinct is not to be like, whoa, this is scammy and weird. It's to be like, oh, we have this fellowship and to respond in fellowship and stay for the meeting.

[Dax Shepard]

The whole thing's driven on being nice because the people who have pitched me, I've had a cutcoat knife demonstration done for me. I've had the acai berry pitch or whatever. Monavie, Monavie.

[Bridget Reed]

Those are just Amway guys.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I've sat through those and it's like, here's someone I love.

[Bridget Reed]

$90 acai juice.

[Dax Shepard]

So another sad, unavoidable pattern you see is these tend to explode when the economy's bad from the very beginning.

[Bridget Reed]

And that's why they exploded in the 70s because inflation was so bad and unemployment rose so much in the 70s. So you just had people like pouring into these companies. They did it in the dot com boom in the 2000s where they said, oh, these are home based digital businesses or network marketing. That's when they started using these different terms. And then of course, during the Great Recession, same thing. That's when Trump lent his name to this supplement company which was called Ideal Health and rebranded as the Trump Network. And he's literally saying, this is how you're going to survive the recession. If you've been laid off, do this. And then of course, the pandemic being the most recent moment where they always get this little boom of participation because people are falling for this pitch of you don't have to have a degree, you don't have to have $10,000 to invest in some business. All you need is 199 to start your starter kit and then they'll immediately ask you for a thousand dollars.

[Monica Padman]

You have more control.

[Bridget Reed]

And that's the thing that I think is really what it's getting into, is the desire for control. People are feeling buffeted by these forces that are way bigger than them and they have this sense of feeling wronged and injustice. And that's what's so really scary and I think just so dark about it, is that instead of channeling that to change something and to find others who are in a similar place as you and maybe do something about it and organize. It's all inward, and it teaches you to channel that inward and say, I can fix myself. I know it's sad and I can take myself out of this.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. The fuel source for it is. Is really a sad one that I have great sympathy for. And you explicitly say it in the book, which is there's a significant portion of the country that has just great distrust. And I think it's largely driven by income inequality. It's like you're looking at all these people that have all this stuff constantly, and now it's only exacerbated by Instagram and other ways to monitor people's life. And there's just this collective sense of something's unfair here. And this seems like a way to.

[Monica Padman]

Right the scales, hack the system.

[Bridget Reed]

And what's so crazy about that and why the subtitle of the book is literally how the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America is because those dynamics that we talked about where there's only a fraction of people succeeding and more and more people are participating, but more and more people are losing. That is actually what's happening to the economy in terms of. Of income and how a fraction of just a few people in this country are making so much more and keeping so much more than everyone paying in.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's a microcosm for all entire.

[Bridget Reed]

And what MLM does is instead of looking at that and thinking, hey, why is this the way that it is? And maybe we could do something about that. It's keep going and maybe you'll get in that club one day. And we're all just trying to get into that fractional club instead of looking at the whole shape and saying, well, does it have to be this way? And is there a way that the distribution could be fairer? And what's so crazy and makes you kind of put your tinfoil hat on is the Amway founders and other people in multiple marketing have politically pushed and contributed to the policies that have made that inequality more stark, like bringing down the marginal tax rate, fighting any kind of wealth tax which would take some of those profits and put them back in, and then tearing apart those social welfare systems that do give you something to fall back on then and that are equal, that everyone has access to, whether that's, you know, they want to get rid of Social Security, pulling apart public education. All of that is to get rid of those collective safety nets that we all share and push this wild west where, where you can make a lot of Money. If you're willing to exploit a lot of people.

[Dax Shepard]

I hate to add this to the fire, but I was just at a conference, a lot of AI people and in that space, and I was saying to someone, all these products are making all these companies so much more efficient. People are wholesale cutting like 30% of their workforce already replacing with AI. And I was like, wow, if you model this app out, the only human in the whole scenario that will benefit from this is whoever owned the company when we started making it efficient. And then it's over. You know, there's not even a way to enter and climb. It was already up here, but now it's going to be a straight line. There'll be one person with this enormous company that's being run by all this AI, it's going to accelerate.

[Bridget Reed]

I think that that isn't far fetched at all. And if we go all the way back to the beginning, to the people that invented this and this idea that one of them had about eugenics and about the idea that people are expendable and that some people are cogs in an efficient machine, that's not that far off from how MLM operates when it's successful. And that's why Monique's story is so important, because you see how she is the most successful in that company when she is not caring about herself at all, just paying into the system and is functionally a cost. That's why MLM is so corrosive in that if you're not at the top functionally, mathematically, you have to be losing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So Monique was in the air force for 17 years. She gets out, she's on a retirement. It's like a stipend. It's 1200 bucks a month is her retirement from the Air Force, which is her rent. And she's wildly depressed, she's directionless, she's sleeping 15 hours a day. That career has ended and she's kind of at a loss of what to do. And someone. Was it a church friend?

[Bridget Reed]

No, she was in Florida and she tried to join this business networking group where she would meet people and maybe get a job. And so this woman in Mary Kay meets her there.

[Dax Shepard]

This woman asked her repeatedly, would you like a facial?

[Bridget Reed]

A facial. Which is so weird because Mary Kay women aren't facialists.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, there's training.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah, there's training and like a certification. They just teach you how to put makeup on. She joins in 2013. In 2013 we already had Sephora and Ulta. The idea that you're gonna buy Makeup from this lady in a pink. It's just so, so antiquated.

[Dax Shepard]

She's super lucky of painting Cadillac.

[Bridget Reed]

She meets this woman and she gets the facial. And what I wanted to really make sure was out there was it was a weird thing. She didn't love it, right?

[Dax Shepard]

She's sick, awkward.

[Bridget Reed]

But then she invites her to this party and she doesn't know anyone in Florida. And so she goes and there's food at the party and she's hungry.

[Monica Padman]

Oh gosh.

[Bridget Reed]

And they pray. And she is looking to find her way back to religion. Cause she was raised a Baptist and wants to feel closer to God again. And Mary Kay is very explicitly Christian. And they pray and she just feels so much love and community. And she signs on for that starter kit, which is $199. And then from there we just chart her journey. And right away they get her to buy an $1,800 wholesale order. Because they say that's what star consultants do. And they have all these phrases like you can't sell from an empty basket and all this stuff. And she is basically spending 400,000 dol a month for a decade.

[Dax Shepard]

And she's living on 1200 and she has rent.

[Bridget Reed]

They encourage her to talk about how successful she's being. Meanwhile, they know that the VA retirement benefits are what's sustaining her barely. She's taken on a huge amount of debt and she has bought a house, but she's done it with a VA loan. So not with Mary Kay. But her uplines are convincing her. You tell your why in mlm. What are you getting out of it? Whether it's I get to be with my kids or I bought a house or I pay for school. Hers is I bought this house. Even though they know that it's a lie. She's just spending, spending, spending. And they tell her, keep your eye on the horizon. It's an investment. And nowadays the whole entrepreneur self help world really helps these MLM people because they'll just show you a video where some entrepreneur is talking about how he lost a million dollars in his first year of business. And so they're just telling you don't think of it as a loss. It's an investment. Or an entrepreneur saying how he never went to college. Because MLM is telling you, don't go to college. Invest here. Small business. And so that's what they're doing with her the whole time.

[Dax Shepard]

Does she build a downline?

[Bridget Reed]

She really only recruits a handful of people. And then those people recruit and at a certain point she Reaches a rank where you have to have a group of 24. And Mary Kay has this crazy qualification where eventually to sort of get to the next rung, you have to all be buying several thousands worth a month. Then you push, push, push and recruit, recruit, recruitment. And it's all to then walk across this stage and get this sash and a recognition at this convention, which I went to in 2023. But everyone is just buying. Everyone knows it. And Monique still to this day has all this stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

She just must have thousands of items.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I would love to X ray the whole country and just see, like, how much of this product is sitting in the salespeople's home. I bet all these people just storing all this fucking product.

[Bridget Reed]

Oh, yeah. Well, that's why. Especially if you know somebody, somebody that sells it, they're using it all the time because they have to, because they have so much around.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Putting on the makeup three times a day.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah. And she really gets out of it, though, feeling love, feeling self worth, feeling like she has a purpose and a place in this country. And so much of being American. Right, is this idea that we can transform our circumstances. That's the American dream, and that's the American story, is we live in a democracy. We don't have royalty. We don't have these fixed hierarchies. We don't have nobility. Where you're born is not where you're gonna die. And so that's really what she's trying to do. And she's a black woman raised in poverty. It's really incredibly noble. What she's trying to do is build something for herself. She's taking care of family members.

[Monica Padman]

She served her country.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. She's served her damn country. And instead, she's being funneled into this horrifying dystopia, just like you said earlier, where they're feeding off of her every month. And I do think there are some people. I know there are some people that would come on and say, I have a really successful business. I have all these recruits. They're really happy. But I really would challenge them. And I know they wouldn't, because they never do. But if you really open your books as a successful multiple marketer and you see all your recruits and how much they're buying and how much they're actually making in an income, maybe you have a few on your downline who are also really successful recruiters and they're making money. But if you really open your books, you're just gonna have masses churning in and out just like her who are buying, buying, buying. And your success is reliant on that, their failures. And I would just challenge those people to really look at what is your success actually built on. If it requires people to fail again. I think those people would say, well, they weren't good at it.

[Dax Shepard]

We're at. I think this inflection where it's like being a country of just go get yours is kind of untenable and heartbreaking and has tons and tons of wreckage surrounding it. But there are still a lot of us. Even where I came from in my very blue collar town is survival. You just had to fucking get ahead. Yeah. If someone was feeling below you, I don't think there was an ethical dilemma in that. Everyone's on the bottom. We must crawl out of this barrel and you gotta get yours. And it's a defendable point of view if you're.

[Monica Padman]

Well, if everyone's at a desperate.

[Dax Shepard]

If you're a desperate person. So I think a good chunk of the country still feels like, yeah, get yours. And that's it.

[Bridget Reed]

Absolutely. This is why MLM is such a useful story to be telling. And first of all, it's not just right wing. MLM has been bipartisan for a long time. The FTC finding of Herbalife that allowed the company and the business model to stay around was under Obama. This is not just like a Reagan thing or a right wing thing or Bush. And the reason I think it persists is because that story that this American style capitalism and the thing that we do in the free market that sort of meets out everyone's fate is ultimately fair and just. And we are in a democracy and we are living out that dream that the meritocracy is still working. The people that have so much more than everyone else, they got there fairly. And that it's not something that should be possibly changed. Right. We shouldn't have a class war. We shouldn't even have a class discussion of whether this is fair. That's a really useful story for all kinds of elites on both sides of the aisle and always has been. Because the booms and busts that you asked about, like why does MLM flourish in a dark economic time? We have these moments where capitalism is not working for all of us in the way that it's being practiced here. It is creating that sense of unrest and that things are not fair and things are rigged. And MLM just again, seeds on the ground among individuals in their living rooms, in their churches. They that it's still fair. You just keep grinding, just keep going, it's gonna work out for you.

[Dax Shepard]

It'd be interesting to see. Cause mostly in the book at least this has historically really preyed on women uniquely. But it's interesting to imagine the flip that is ahead for us when you have 20 some percent of 20 year old boys unemployed.

[Bridget Reed]

And you could say that crypto is the MLM when they're not destroyed. Straight up gambling and being addicted to gambling sites.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Bridget Reed]

And just doing lotteries, which is why just bypass the whole thing altogether. And you know what you were talking about basically the Gilded Age where get yours was a matter of policy.

[Dax Shepard]

It was your moral actually.

[Bridget Reed]

Right. We were in the Wild west of those robber barons. The reason they're called the robber barons is they were robbing, they were fighting, they were calling police on horses and shooting into crowds of workers when they were doing strikes. Right. This, this is before the New Deal, before the sort of modern era of worker employer relations where we had some boundaries on what private companies and capitalists could do. And that's why we have child labor laws. That's why we have the right to organize a union. That's why we have all of these things. And for a while after the New Deal, in this American era where MLM was conceived, that stuff was something to be prideful about. Ronald Reagan was a spokesperson for GM when the union at GM was really important. And of course there were all kinds of ways that GM was always trying to undercut the workers because of course their interests are different. But like the idea that there were wage laborers who had rights was a point of pride and was something that we then built the welfare state on those rights too. If you were gi, you could go to college on the GI Bill or you could go to a public school. These are things that everyone has access to. It's the opposite of get yours. And of course again, lots of flaws in all of these systems, lots of flaws in Social Security. But the idea of it is that we all have access. It's not Darwinian. It's not, you'll get it if you can get it. And so these guys who built MLM already in the 40s, they're trying to reverse that. They're trying to then seed this idea that actually. No, no, no, let's go back to the get yours. Let's go back to the Wild West. They're very honest that they want to rebrand this free, free, free market deregulation that Wild west rebranded as. It's not a place where everyone's being hurt. It's not A violent place. The ferry boats aren't crashing. But actually it's like, that's how we're going to be freer. That's how we're going to get democracy, independence. Exactly. We will all benefit and of course, trickle down. Literally. That's the idea, right? That if we let these people accumulate as much wealth as possible, you all be rich. We will all get it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bridget Reed]

And that's what's happening. And again, not to put the tinfoil hat on, but so many people seem ready to story where so many people. It's only in America where you have people paying into AMWA $400 a month. I talked to one woman who by the end, she and her husband, he worked in an oil field. They had a little baby. They're budgeting $20 a week for their groceries because of how much they're spending on Amway. And they are looking at the fact that the Amway families have a yacht. They have their own family office because they have so much money. Their kids will never work. Their kids. Kids will never work. This is an American dynasty. These are royals. And they're just thinking, I'll get there one day. They're like, I'm so proud of this yacht. And of course, this woman has since left and she's basically done cult deprogramming. But, like, only in America, I think, are you not getting in the streets being like, excuse me. Yeah, this will not stand. We're just all getting back to posting, being like, hey, guys, I have an amazing offer for you. This incredible opportunity. Yeah, like, that's where we're at.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, boy, this is a wild topic.

[Dax Shepard]

It is a wild topic. I'm delighted you wrote this book and it is crazy how little exists on this topic as you endeavored it.

[Bridget Reed]

I feel like it's five books because there's so many little rabbit holes to go down. And I hope people write more books on this because I feel like I scratched the surface.

[Dax Shepard]

We give a very thorough history of MLMs, but your book is just full of personal stories that are really, really compelling and heartbreaking.

[Bridget Reed]

And of course, I went to the convention, saw this in person and spoke to a corporate employee. This was the Mary Kay convention and you should said, we don't track what people are selling, we only track what they're buying. It's very clear that this is the way that this is set up. And I just think more people should know that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I want to leave everyone on this. In a different interview, the interviewer asked you what would you recommend people do when they're getting pitched these. And it may be a little bit counterintuitive, but your advice is you're doing them the best favor by not buying it. Now you're accelerating. Please elaborate. I'm not gonna botch.

[Bridget Reed]

When people humor their sister or friend and buy one of these products, they think they're helping them out, but you're just prolonging their involvement. Because if you're in the A list, once they get through you and then the B list and the C, they're gonna just run out and they're gonna recruit and maybe stay longer or buy more. Because, of course, what's documented in the book is also people just buy. So even if you can't recruit, you'll buy for somebody and just put it on your credit card if they can't afford it, just to get the reward. Keep the. To keep your place in the downline. And so contributing at all is keeping that hope alive. I think the faster somebody sees the reality, the faster they will get out.

[Dax Shepard]

Direct and obvious parallels. You shouldn't loan someone 30 bucks to get high again. You want to try to accelerate them having to confront that.

[Bridget Reed]

Exactly. It's all gamified. And I think that that impulse has been increased in all of us to respond to a gamified environment. So we're all even more vulnerable to this idea that we're going to get ahead. And so stop it at the pass and just don't buy it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Well, Bridget, this has been incredibly interesting. Everyone should check out little bosses everywhere. How the pyramid scheme shaped America. It's kind of like a glimpse of a aspect of our country that is very much fractal of our whole setup. It's got larger implications than even MLMs. So thank you so much. This has been a blast.

[Monica Padman]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

Always take a leave D or whatever one you took before interviews. You were on.

[Bridget Reed]

Speed. Works for me, I guess.

[Dax Shepard]

Always beyond Clarit M.D. all right. Be well. Hi, there. This is hermium. Permium. If you like that, you're going to love the fact checker. Ms. Monica, is there places you wouldn't wear that shirt? Be honest.

[Monica Padman]

There's nowhere I wouldn't wear. There's nowhere I wouldn't wear this shirt.

[Dax Shepard]

A funeral, a wedding, A christening.

[Monica Padman]

No, I'd wear it to a christening. I would wear it to a wedding with a big ball gown, skirt.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, and a Rolling Stones T shirt.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And in a funeral, I'd wear it under a black blazer, blazer, and black pants.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

But this person who's passed will really appreciate the Stones.

[Dax Shepard]

That was their favorite band. That's a high percentage chance to take. I have bad news to share with you.

[Monica Padman]

What?

[Dax Shepard]

I don't know what the solution is. I don't know if I have to move and put the house up for sale or order another engine. But I had made a promise to my family that they would not be out on the lake. And come across anyone with a faster pontoon but boat and that I can't say that anymore. In good conscious, you know, was exploring. Saw someone with a huge yard, right. I'm like, oh my God. That person has 30 acres on the lake. The house was astronomical. So we're just snooping around the shore. And looking at this impossible piece of property. And how do they mow it? You know, those are the kind of questions you ask on a boat. Like how are they mowing that. That looks steep on the side. I'd like to somehow be out here when they're mowing it next time. All that to say we come around this huge peninsula. And we come around the side to where we see where their boats are at. And oh my God, there it was. 25 foot pontoon boat. I have one 400 horsepower V10. This had two 450 horsepower outboards. 900 horsepower compared to my 400. So I don't know what my move is. I don't know if I should sabotage his boat, ask him to move, sell our house, order. I told Aaron I was gonna order a 501 horsepower engine for one side. So that I have one horsepower more than that. Man or woman? I shouldn't assume it's a man.

[Monica Padman]

You gotta get off the treadmill, man.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I can't be number one.

[Monica Padman]

We can't all be number. We can all be the best. He's the best. And that's that.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Minimally, I'd like to put a small tracker on the boat. So that I know if he or she is out on the lake. Because I would like to avoid being out there at any point that they're out there.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I don't understand, but I. I hear you and I, I. I respect your words. Okay. When I come visit, can we watch what Lies Beneath and really get in the lake mood?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, for sure we could do. We should really think about all the lake movies we could do on Golden Pond. I guess that's what supposed to be good.

[Monica Padman]

That feels sounds like boring.

[Dax Shepard]

It sounds like a homework, doesn't it?

[Monica Padman]

On the waterfront. Yeah. I don't Want to do that?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. On the Waterfront. Not like more longshoremen.

[Monica Padman]

You know, I'm against that movie, so.

[Dax Shepard]

Just what Lies Beneath, I guess.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

All right.

[Monica Padman]

Or isn't in. I don't think I've seen Sleeping with the Enemy. But doesn't she, like, learn how to swim?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, to escape him.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, she's secretly, like, learning how to swim.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that Julia Roberts?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And she moves to, like, a Southern town, right?

[Monica Padman]

I don't know, but I think we need to watch that.

[Dax Shepard]

I'll watch it.

[Monica Padman]

Have you heard about the doc on the poop boat? Like a cruise where everyone pooped everywhere?

[Dax Shepard]

Shitwreck or something. I keep seeing it pop up on new releases on Netflix. You haven't watched it?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I have not watched it because it feels like, how dare I spend my time, my precious time, watching someone pooping everywhere.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I watched the trailer in a very functional cruise ship, pulls up alongside of them to, like, I guess, ferry on some supplies. And the other cruise ship is, like, blasting music and partying. They're having fun. They're on a cruise. And the other cruise is there's no toilets, and they're all staring at the partying boat. And they're not happy that they're partying. And then I thought, well, what should they do? Be miserable. Cause you're miserable. They should party. People don't like that.

[Monica Padman]

What happened? Were they stuck out there? Like, why were they stuck?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I think there was just, like, a lot of mechanical failures all at once. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I guess I should watch it.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's. Let's both aim to watch it. Or you could watch it when you come.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah. Okay. Let's add that to. Oh, that's a water.

[Dax Shepard]

The kids are intrigued because of the poop. That's got their interest piqued. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Obviously. I have a question for you about my neighbors. No.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Two questions in the similar category. Do you say when you hear the phrase, it's all downhill from here?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

What does it mean to you?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, it's interesting. I think we have talked about it. It sounds good and also bad. It's a very confusing saying.

[Monica Padman]

So how would you use it?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, it's all downhill from here is positive. It's all downhill is bad.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I see. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Isn't that interesting? Like, from here means we've peaked, we're at the peak, and we're gonna get to coast down, but it's gonna be all downhill. Sounds like things are gonna get worse, right?

[Monica Padman]

And in some ways, even if you Say it's all downhill from here. It still could be worse because it's like you're at the top of the map. You're at the top, and so it's all from here.

[Dax Shepard]

Everyone wants to be at the top. But I like a valley. I like a valley a lot. I think I'm in the Ohio River Valley valley or the Tennessee Valley, and I like it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but then you have. You're in the valley, but you have to get. Then you have to climb to the top to get to the next.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I'm all done. I don't have to climb to the top anymore.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, you just live in the valley.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, that's what's like. That's the transition in life I'm at. There's no more peaks, just valley living.

[Monica Padman]

I think I use it negatively. I def. Well, I know I do. I. I've never said it's all downhill from here in a positive way.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

Like, ugh, it was all downhill from.

[Dax Shepard]

There, and it was all downhill from.

[Monica Padman]

There, and it was bad. And I say it like, ugh.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, back to my neighbors who you wanted to know about. They're so friendly. We have been delivered two pies just like you would expect from the South. They delivered two completely delicious, warm peach pies.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. That's a ding, ding, ding. I made a peach galette yesterday.

[Dax Shepard]

What's a galette?

[Monica Padman]

Freeform pie. We've already discussed this. You refuse to commit it to memory.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

The inside is a little open, but there's crusts on the sides.

[Dax Shepard]

That sounds nice. You made another one of those yesterday.

[Monica Padman]

I did. I'm gonna serve it tonight for mah jong.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, are you hosting or attending?

[Monica Padman]

Hosting. And actually, when we were on the trip, I got a real BMI bonnet for mah Jong. I forgot it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I forgot my set. And I was really looking forward to on the trip with people, and so I got really upset, and I was like, we gotta. We have to find mah jong. You can't find it. Like, if you.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not just for sale.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah. And I. So I was calling all these antique stores to see if they had any mah Jong sets.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you look on Amazon?

[Monica Padman]

I did, but it wouldn't deliver by then.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

By the time we left, it wasn't like, next day delivery, so. So I call all these antique stores. No one has it, but they're all so friendly. They're like, sorry, babe.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And then we go on Facebook. Marketplace. Never been on it before. Okay. Yeah, but we go on there's somebody there in Palm Springs with a Mahjong set that we could get, but we didn't want to go drive to get it. Right. So we were going to send an Uber, get it and bring it to us.

[Dax Shepard]

I would have been most excited about going to the person's house. House and seeing who's selling the mush on.

[Monica Padman]

Well, we were just having too much fun. We didn't want.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

So this created a dilemma. Another dilemma, like, downhill from here, where the lady who was selling it was like, okay, you need to Zell me before I put it in the Uber.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

And we were like, no, we are not zelling until we have it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

And I. And I understand both points of view.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Because I get. She's like, I can't just put it in anymore. Have money. Yeah, yeah. But then for us, same situation.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. So what'd you do?

[Monica Padman]

We didn't follow up.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. Okay. And at that point, they must have thought, well, yeah, they were trying to scam us out of our Mahjong. But that's pretty funny to assume someone would send an Uber to steal a Mahjong. How much was the mahjong set? Are they more than. I think. Think.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, my current one is like $400.

[Dax Shepard]

Whoa, really?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's expensive. How would they want on marketplace one wasn't. I. I think it was cheaper. I think it was in the, like, between 1 and $200 range.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. I'm just killing a fly or attempting to, but I don't have enough rag. You see what little bit of rag I'm working with? That's not really.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that looks like air, Ma.

[Dax Shepard]

It's to clean my glasses, not to kill flies.

[Monica Padman]

Anyway, so that was a big dilemma, which led to no Mahjong. And so I'm playing tonight. And there will be a peach galette.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, lovely. And does it get better or worse in the fridge over the night?

[Monica Padman]

This is the big question. I'm scared it's going to be bad. So I also have another pie crust in the wings waiting in case I need to make that tonight. Did you eat the pie that the neighbors brought?

[Dax Shepard]

It was delicious. The pies were so fresh. I mean, the peaches were so fresh.

[Monica Padman]

Listen, you are shaking your head no. And we are on video.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I ain't around it like Jess. I ate the peaches. I couldn't have the other stuff, but I ate around it and the peach.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And she seemed fine with that.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, she came over and watched you eat it.

[Dax Shepard]

No, the pie.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. The pie lady watched you eat it.

[Dax Shepard]

No, no, no. Just the pie felt fine with how I ate around.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, okay, listen, just so you know, I probably shouldn't break this to you. Although maybe you're allowed to have it that those peaches probably had cornstarch.

[Dax Shepard]

Not these ones. These were so fresh.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, they did. No, no, no. That's how you make it. Trust me, I've made two in the past, like, two weeks.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, do you remember we just had a chef on.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, brilliant. Curtis Duffy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Curtis Duffy, the brilliant chef. And he talked about that he would have his staff make him chocolate based.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

So I have been talking about that out loud and saying how bad I wanted chocolate bakes with almond butter. Oh, and Kristen made them. Oh, and here's a shocker. They're better even with almond butter. I was expecting to not have the thing from my childhood that I crave so much. No, it's even better with almond butter. You should really look into making some chocno bakes with almond butter. You wouldn't believe what a hit they are.

[Monica Padman]

I don't think I've had a chocno bake.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, well, I bet you'll have some when you visit here because I got a hunch these are gonna be on high rot. My diet has gone in the toilet now that I'm in the South. I think a lot of people could have predicted that.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

But yes, I've been on a real sweets train. We got the peach pie I ate around. Then I got the chocolate bites that you barely ate. I ate the whole thing. Ate the ass of. And then I've had Dairy Queen. There's a Dairy Queen in town. And then there's a really cute new custard shot shop, frozen custard, called. Oh, it's got a name like Jimmy's or something. I don't know. It's very popular.

[Monica Padman]

It start with a G, maybe new.

[Dax Shepard]

It's brand new.

[Monica Padman]

There's a frozen custard place that starts with a G in the South. That's good.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, this could be it. This appears to be a chain, but it's brand spanking new. And there is. That's another fun thing, Monica. Line around the. Out the door. You know, I don't know how long the line was. Maybe 50ft, 60ft. There's a good 45 people in it. And I pulled up normally in LA, that would drive me nuts. Right? I'd be like, oh, I'm not going. I'm not gonna wait in line for an hour. And I was like, ooh, I'm excited to wait in line. And it was so fun. And I just. People watched and everyone was out to have an ice cream. So everyone was in a good mood. It was kind of like being at Disneyland. Remember when we took David to Disneyland? I'm like, where else can you go where people decided they're gonna have a great. Well, that's what was happening at this place. And I realized I loved hanging in line. And Delta did too. We both had a really good time.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, well, this is the opposite of what we were talking about with In N Out, where I said, yeah, part of it is the line. That's part of it. And you said, no, now here we are.

[Dax Shepard]

I know. And now we have a different circumstance. And I'm seemingly having the opposite opinion.

[Monica Padman]

Very similar circumstance, but opposite opinion.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right.

[Monica Padman]

Just saying.

[Dax Shepard]

There's no difference. Difference other than people that go to In n Out are often in a great mood, but they're off. They're often also just there because they're hungry. Maybe they're even cranky because they're hungry. This is.

[Monica Padman]

I'm gonna get in and out.

[Dax Shepard]

We've already eaten. And now we're going to get dessert. And it's like what we're doing tonight and we're outside.

[Monica Padman]

I understand.

[Dax Shepard]

I love it.

[Monica Padman]

I do. I love. I love a. A summer ice cream moment. I love a summer ice cream moment. Do you guys have Brewsters there?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I haven't seen one, but I saw Zaxby's. Your mom's restaurant. Doesn't your mom love Zaxby's?

[Monica Padman]

No, that's mine. I love Zaxby's.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, we have one.

[Monica Padman]

I love Zaxby's chicken. It is Southern fried chicken.

[Dax Shepard]

But what's your mom loves? What's your mom's cafeteria? I was talking about it yesterday. I was looking at Zaxby's. Delta said, is that a such and such? And I said, no, I think it's a cafeteria. And then I think my father in law said, I think it's chicken. And there's a big, big picture of a chicken on it.

[Monica Padman]

Chicken on it. Yeah. And it's not a cafeteria.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not a cafeteria. I'm thinking that because of Nurmi, and.

[Monica Padman]

That'S why it is a drive. It's a fast food. Zaxby's is. But the cafeteria, you bring up lubbies or something. But that's not what she. We don't have that there.

[Dax Shepard]

We don't have lies.

[Monica Padman]

She just likes all the ca.

[Dax Shepard]

She just would love lobby or lubies.

[Monica Padman]

She would love it. Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe lubies even more than lies.

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. You don't know. Why didn't you read on for all fours?

[Monica Padman]

I did.

[Dax Shepard]

She was having no problem. Right. Getting creative.

[Monica Padman]

Perimenopause.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. That's the horny section.

[Monica Padman]

I don't want to think about any of that.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.

[Monica Padman]

Anywh. Who. Okay, I have one more word riddle for you.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, great.

[Monica Padman]

Do you say, I'm gonna turn the air down or I'm gonna turn the air air up?

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. I could definitely see where. That's ripe for confusion. I'm gonna. I would say I'm gonna turn the air down a bit. Oof.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Turn the air on. Turn the air up. I would say both and they shouldn't work. What would you say?

[Monica Padman]

I think I. I think I say.

[Dax Shepard]

Turn it down, meaning you want it colder.

[Monica Padman]

Turn the air down or you want it, meaning I want it colder. Oh, no, no. If I'm in the car, it's like, oh, turn the air up.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, turn it up.

[Monica Padman]

But in the car.

[Bridget Reed]

Huh.

[Monica Padman]

That's tricky, though, because in the car, often the knob, you are turning it up.

[Dax Shepard]

The fan speed. Yeah, the fan. The fan speed's going up, but the temperature's going down. That's why it's inherently conflicting.

[Monica Padman]

That's why this is a great riddle.

[Dax Shepard]

So maybe just we could clean it up by going, make the air colder. Make the air hotter.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but that doesn't have the same ring to it.

[Dax Shepard]

That's true. We also like nuance in trying to get. Yes, it's fun to not really know what anyone's talking about.

[Monica Padman]

We love riddles.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Reading through the lines, mixed messages, reading.

[Dax Shepard]

Between the lines, a lot of that.

[Monica Padman]

I said reading through the lines.

[Dax Shepard]

I know. I don't think that's the same.

[Monica Padman]

Same thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Same thing, though.

[Monica Padman]

No, this is another riddle. What do you say? Between or through Betwix.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think if we were in England, we'd say reading betwixt the lines?

[Monica Padman]

I do.

[Dax Shepard]

Again, just to remind you, I've wanted to start using Walst, but I just can't figure out. I love Walst.

[Monica Padman]

You mean whilst.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, the English always say walst.

[Monica Padman]

I was reading whilst at the pool.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I love it, but when I try to say it, it doesn't work.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, I want you to try to say it before the end of this episode. Just.

[Dax Shepard]

I'll do it whilst we're conversing not right now. That worked out pretty good, though.

[Monica Padman]

That was too fast.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

It's supposed to be a pop out.

[Dax Shepard]

What do you want? What's your summer watch?

[Monica Padman]

Struggling.

[Dax Shepard]

You are.

[Monica Padman]

I'm struggling. Oh, you know what's fun, though? So the New York Times had a list that they created of the hundred best movies. Hundred best. See, I don't love it, but okay, 100 best movies.

[Dax Shepard]

There you go. Hundred.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I do love it. No, I do. I know, but I do love it because it's ranked. So there is a number one, 100 best movies of the 21st century. So since 2000. And then it was also, like, you submitted yours and your top 10, which was a fun game. Do you wanna hear what mine were?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, I would love to.

[Monica Padman]

Mine are Eternal Sunshine.

[Dax Shepard]

Love it. Oh, you just.

[Monica Padman]

Thumbs up. Get out.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Eternal Sunshine. Get out. The Social Network. Amelie. Ocean's Eleven. Interstellar Moneyball. Royal Tenenbaums. The Worst Person in the World. Past Lives.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so I saw your list and I thought you were reposting the list because that list, to me, is what I thought the recently published best of list is. But that was your list.

[Monica Padman]

That's my list.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. I was like, this is a good list. And it's eclectic. It's not what I would expect from a poll of a magazine. So now I'm curious about what the real list is, because I thought that was the real. Yeah, you tricked me.

[Monica Padman]

Do you want me to read it?

[Dax Shepard]

The real list? Yeah, just top 10. I don't want to hear a hundred titles.

[Monica Padman]

Dang. This happened at dinner for in Palm Springs. I was excited to read the whole list, and they made me. They didn't want that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. No one wants to hear 100 items out loud. I. I don't.

[Monica Padman]

I do.

[Dax Shepard]

No one wants to go even past 30. Like, 20 would be the limit, I think.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God, you guys, I love lists. They let me start at 50 and everyone was really into it once I started.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, at 50.

[Monica Padman]

Number 100 is super bad. Just gonna tell you that. Now remember, this is only from 2000. That's why good will hunting wasn't on mine.

[Dax Shepard]

25 years was bottle rocket 2000 or newer. I'll look that out on my own. I don't want you to leave that. Page 96. Okay, so I'm. I excuse that that wasn't on your list then.

[Monica Padman]

I do love that movie. But I would still pick Royal Tennant.

[Dax Shepard]

Bombs and you'd pick both. You'd pick that over Rushmore as well.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Royal Tenen Bombs is my favorite. Ah, Wes Anderson movie.

[Bridget Reed]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And very core to me. Like one that I watched so many times that I was like, so moved by.

[Dax Shepard]

I got to rewatch it. I love it. But I definitely like Rushmore and Bottle Rocket more.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, those are.

[Dax Shepard]

I love Rushmore.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I could rewatch Rushmore. Is there a lake in it? Could we watch it during our lake movies?

[Dax Shepard]

There's no lake. There's swimming. Just in the swimming pool.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, the pool.

[Dax Shepard]

That's where Bill Murray's watching his kids. And he hates them. His boys. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Okay, ready? Number 10. 10. The Social Network. Number nine, Spirited Away.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a horse movie.

[Monica Padman]

Number no, no, no, no.

[Dax Shepard]

You're thinking of Spirit of Cameroon.

[Monica Padman]

No, you're thinking of that TV show that the kids used to watch.

[Dax Shepard]

Spirit of Cameroon. Yeah. Cimarron.

[Monica Padman]

No, it's just called, like Spirit, I think.

[Dax Shepard]

Spirit of Cimarron. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, let's see. Now. This is a. This is an animated.

[Dax Shepard]

Is there a cartoon called Spirit of Cimarron on? It's just called Spirit and it's animated. What's the one on your list?

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Spirited Away is an animated movie. It's a hand drawn fairy tale of adolescence. Alice in Wonderland of our age. Unforgettable characters keep spilling out of abandoned magical bath house. I have heard of this. It's like on a lot of people's lists.

[Dax Shepard]

The answer to my question is yes. There is a well known animated feature called Spirit. Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron. C I M A R R O.

[Monica Padman]

N. But is that. Remember the show they used to watch and there was a really catchy theme song.

[Dax Shepard]

That was it. That was Spirit.

[Monica Padman]

I thought this says feature.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. So that was in 2002. And then they made a TV show.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, here you go. Follow ups in the franchise spirit riding free 2017-2012. Spirit untamed 2021.

[Monica Padman]

I remember when we were in Turks and Caicos, the kids were watching Spirit and that theme song was really in my head.

[Dax Shepard]

Running Wild, I'm Running Free.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, something like that. Okay. Number eight is Get Out.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Number seven, Eternal Sunshine.

[Dax Shepard]

So a similar list.

[Monica Padman]

Number six, no country for Old Men.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Number five, Moonlight. Number four, in the Mood for Love. I have not seen it, but I really want to see.

[Dax Shepard]

What is that?

[Monica Padman]

It's set in Hong Kong and it's like a love story. It's. It was in 2001. It's on. It's supposed to be great. I really want to See it. Number three, There will be blood.

[Dax Shepard]

Great.

[Monica Padman]

Love number number two. Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Sorry. I got it. I'm under control now.

[Monica Padman]

Number two, Mulholland Drive. Another one I have not seen, but would love to see.

[Dax Shepard]

Great.

[Monica Padman]

Did you hear me?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Mulholland Drive. Another one you haven't seen. What you'd love to see. I could rewatch that. I love that.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, great. Is there a lake?

[Dax Shepard]

Can't remember.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, number one, Parasite.

[Dax Shepard]

Love it.

[Monica Padman]

Parasite is an incredible movie. I. I like that. At number one.

[Dax Shepard]

That's strong. Number one. All right. I'm trying to find you your song here. Here we go.

[Bridget Reed]

You.

[Dax Shepard]

Here we go. Monica.

[Bridget Reed]

Love is going to hold me back. I'm going to. Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not going to lie. I just. I just got full body goosebumps.

[Monica Padman]

It is a good song.

[Dax Shepard]

It's really good. I'm riding free.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Boy, Turks and Caicos. What a fun trip that was.

[Monica Padman]

What a fun trip. We got in a huge fight, but it was still so fun.

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't remember that part. But you did.

[Monica Padman]

You didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. I do. I do.

[Monica Padman]

It's really seared. Let's not unpack it. Because of this list, I have decided I wanna go through a bunch of these and watch ones that I haven't seen that are intriguing to me. So I did watch Zodiac. I had never seen that.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, that's Fincher, his lessest known, least known movie. And Downey, Robert Downey.

[Monica Padman]

Downey. Jake G. Jake G's jg. Yeah, it was great. Oh, Mark Ruffalo.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Anthony Edwards. Er. Ding, ding, ding. Aids.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. Yeah. Aids.

[Monica Padman]

I. I was confused because for some reason in my head, when I started the movie, I thought JG was the villain. Like in. I was like, oh, that's that movie where Jake Gyllenhaal is the killer.

[Dax Shepard]

Jaegers.

[Monica Padman]

So I'm watching it. Yeah, Jers. And I'm watching it for so long, I'm like, wow. He. He ends up being the killer. That's so wild. And then, of course, I was wrong.

[Dax Shepard]

He wasn't. No, he was just. That wasn't. He was a journalist, right?

[Monica Padman]

He was a cartoonist, actually.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And then he got obsessed with the case.

[Dax Shepard]

That can happen to people. They get bit by a case. It's probably gonna happen to me before I'm dead. I'm gonna get obsessed with a case and solve it.

[Monica Padman]

What case are you gonna try to.

[Dax Shepard]

Solve a murder or probably, like, a missing motorcycle.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that sounds right.

[Dax Shepard]

The Lord's work.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So I wanted to talk to you about shopping before we parted.

[Monica Padman]

All right, let's hear it.

[Dax Shepard]

Cause I normally, obviously, I can't relate at all to you with the shopping, but because I have a garage here and I don't have anything I had in la, I've been going to Lowe's and Home Depot, and I went with Aaron. Well, I went on that great trip with the girls, I think I told you. And I gave them half the list and they were on fire. I couldn't believe how good they were. Then I went back with Aaron day one when he was here, and I had to get a lot of stuff. Stuff, Monica. Trash cans, brooms, power washer, you know, all this stuff.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

And I got to tell you, it was so fun. You're right. It was so fun. When it's a place like Home Depot and I like, every aisle has something I know I need, but I just need to go look because I've forgotten. I get it. And Aaron and I, when we left, I was like, that's among the most fun times I've ever had with you. And he's like, I completely agree. I would love to come back back and just do three more hours of shopping. And we decided we should have a business where people just give us their list at Home Depot or Lowe's and we go get it because we like so much shopping there.

[Monica Padman]

That's called Instacart.

[Dax Shepard]

We did figure that out as well afterwards. But ours will be different. Ours will be. We don't charge you, but it'll probably be less convenient.

[Monica Padman]

Why will it be less convenient?

[Dax Shepard]

Because we don't have an app and all the sophisticated stuff. So you'll have to write your list out and then probably take a picture of it.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I think you can just sign up for Instacart like you did for the other ride.

[Dax Shepard]

Not personalized.

[Monica Padman]

Food delivery.

[Dax Shepard]

Not personalized enough for me. I want to have a relationship with the people I shop for.

[Monica Padman]

Cool.

[Dax Shepard]

And I play this game with the cashier each time I say, what's the over under on this order, because they're good at it. They should be good at it. They ring up all day long and then they guess, and then I make Aaron guess and the girls guess and I guess and we all play by by Price is Right rules, which is even if someone's a dollar over, they lost.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, those rules are tricky.

[Dax Shepard]

The bill could be 1500. Someone could have guessed it's 600, and someone guessed 1501 and 600 wins. Those are the rules.

[Monica Padman]

That's so ridiculous.

[Dax Shepard]

It's pretty good rules, though, for. It's multiple rules.

[Monica Padman]

This happened during Cornhole, too. Cornhole's the. The same thing. If you get. If. If you get over 21. Yeah, you're back. You go back to 11.

[Dax Shepard]

Ooh, that's harsh.

[Monica Padman]

That happened a lot during Palm Springs. Not to me, because I never really got over 21, but to a lot of other people. And I was Charlie and Ryan. Yeah. And Jess and Matt and Anna. Anna's really good.

[Dax Shepard]

Everyone but you.

[Monica Padman]

I was most improved.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you have a hankering for it? Like, are you gonna wanna play in Nashville? Like, do you crave it?

[Monica Padman]

I love Cornhole. I love Cornhole. I've always loved it. Oh, my God. This is just like. When did I already tell this story? I was shopping. Ding, ding, ding. With Jess, and we were at a vintage store, and I got a sweatshirt that says Bud Light on it, and it's so cute. Cute. And I was checking out, and Jess said in front of the lady who was ringing me up, he said, you've never even drank a Bud Light in your life.

[Dax Shepard]

He outed you.

[Monica Padman]

It's not an out. That's a lie. I got so mad, he made me look like an idiot in front of this lady.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And I was like, you don't. You didn't know me in college. How dare you?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, where do you get off? Where do you get the nerve?

[Monica Padman]

Where exactly? And I used to drink a ton of Bud Light.

[Dax Shepard]

How much? Six at a time.

[Monica Padman]

Well, we used to play all kinds of games. Waterfall, King's Pen or something. I forget what that's called. You know, and also that thing where you drink a. Oh, beer pong. A ton. Flip cup. All the games.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, I never played these drinking games. I never got them. It's like, I didn't need someone to tell me to drink more.

[Monica Padman]

No, it was just. It's just fun. Games are fun, dad.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I should play more drinking games.

[Monica Padman]

Games are so fun. But anyway, so cornhole is like that. Like, I know. I just sensed from you that you were like. Oh, you just. You're just learning how to play. Interesting. And I. I used to play. I was a different girl in Athletes. Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

That would have liked to meet them. That version. That'd be fun.

[Monica Padman]

You still can. Charlie wants to go to a Georgia game, and I'm going to arrange it. I want us all to go.

[Dax Shepard]

I would love that. That would be so fun.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

But also, I'd like to time travel and meet you in Athens. And see this version? The carefree college kid who was planning her next booty bump.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, God. Carefree.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that wasn't in the mix? Carefree?

[Monica Padman]

I wasn't carefree. I actually, I actually had. I had like, you know, more cares, really bad anxiety. But I had fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you drank through it.

[Monica Padman]

I sure did.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What a gift.

[Monica Padman]

So when are you gonna go shopping again? Today?

[Dax Shepard]

It's possible. You know, I did have a day here. Did I already bore you with it where I did the most amount of things I've ever done in a day?

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

I couldn't believe this day. I woke up, I was meditating at 5:30. Did I tell you I put out 32 pallets on the marshy ground leading to the boat Dec? Cause it was mud. By the time you got to the boat, you were covered in mud. And then coming back, you'd get covered in mud. So I took 32 pallets from behind Lowe's and Home Depot.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And I laid them all out and I've made a boardwalk. And then I. Oh, nice. I didn't want that to stick out so much. So then I ordered grass paint that you pump up in a big plastic jug and spray. So I spray painted 32 pallets green to match the grass. I took the trash to the dumpster, I went to Home Depot. I dropped my car off to get tires. I mopped my entire barn, which I don't think you can imagine what a big project that is, mopping that entire barn. But I mopped the whole thing in the dark gym. Then I got salt licks and feeders for the deer. I dropped my Roadmaster off to get new mufflers at Midas. And this is the craziest one. At 3:40pm I'd already had this day where I'd done all this stuff since 5:30. At 3:40pm I said to Kristin, I'm 35 minutes away from the trailer place. They close at 5. And then another 25 minutes past, there is the golf cart place place. And I'm leaving my house at 3:40 in Mount Juliet. I left thinking, I give this a 40% chance. I succeed at this. I walked into the trailer place and I said, hi, do you want to set a world record for fastest trailer sold? And she goes, yeah, let's do it. I was driving out of the parking lot with a new Flatbed trailer within 10 minutes with the title signed wow.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Made it to the golf cart place, bought a golf cart, had it loaded on the trailer, was pulling out of the golf cart place. 12 minutes to five minutes.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm telling you, I felt like a freaking hero. Monica. What a day.

[Monica Padman]

That's a lot. That's a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

I think just mopping the. Mopping the barn would have been enough for a victorious day for me. But then I add in all that other stuff I just bored you with. I mean, spray painting.

[Monica Padman]

32 palettes.

[Dax Shepard]

I do. I love a to do list. I had all these things written, and I just kept going, shit, it's time to pull out that to do list and tackle something else.

[Monica Padman]

Else. Yeah. You love a list.

[Dax Shepard]

I do. And I feel as accomplished as if I work. You know?

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

That kind of list feels like filming all day or something. I feel very accomplished.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Do you think I'll run out of stuff to do?

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Because I have these.

[Monica Padman]

You can always add stuff. You can add, like, swam for 10 minutes. Like you. You can always add stuff that's actually just regs.

[Dax Shepard]

And how do you feel about that? So I ethically have a dilemma. So some of items were added after I did them to my list. Do you do that? You have a list, and then you pick up some stray things, and then you add it to the list to feel proud of yourself. You do do it. Okay. It feels a little grimy when I do it, but I. But I do it.

[Monica Padman]

I actually don't do lists like that unless it's truly like, I need to keep track of what I'm gonna have to do tomorrow. When I did make lists, I would add stuff like that. And then I did. Yeah. I was like, I don't like any of this. All I'm doing is trying to prove to myself in writing that you're stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. And that started to feel silly. So I. I don't really list anymore. But yes, if you. If you're a list. If you're a list guy or a list girl, you're adding stuff last minute. You're adding stuff post, post. Accomplishment.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You want to look at that list at the end of the day and go, my God, you really did it.

[Monica Padman]

And then you want to read it on a podcast, and then you want.

[Dax Shepard]

To read it out loud as many people who will listen.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Bridget Reed]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So I want you to be impressed with my industriousness.

[Monica Padman]

Of course. So you'll like me because that's what I care about.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right. And how good of a driver I am.

[Monica Padman]

Yep. All right. Should we do some facts?

[Dax Shepard]

Let's.

[Monica Padman]

This is for bridget. Bridget and MLMs.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God, I loved this one.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, me too. So informative, so interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean the fact that some of those stats that we Learned like that 90, 99% of people lose money. The notion. I mean, I think I said it in the interview, but anything where 99% of the time you're gonna lose. No one does.

[Monica Padman]

I know. Okay. The strange angel JPL guy is Jack Parsons.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, Jack Parsons. He's a maniac.

[Monica Padman]

Yep. He co founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was deeply involved in cult practices.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Also, Bridget worked at Vogue and there was big news. I asked her if she reported to Anna. Anna Wintour is stepping down as editor in chief of Vogue. It's a huge deal in the fashion world.

[Bridget Reed]

World.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh yeah. How do you feel about. How are you taking that news? Can't be great.

[Monica Padman]

It's hard to take in. I'm just. It's just the end of an era.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure.

[Monica Padman]

Now, I looked up spending by gender. I just confirmed that women spend more than men, which they do tend to.

[Dax Shepard]

I think they say that they are responsible for like 80% of the domestic purchasing. Like they're who advertisers are advertising to.

[Monica Padman]

Women tend to spend more than men, particularly in terms of total consumer spending and influencing purchasing decisions. While men may spend more per transaction, women's overall spending and influence on purchases are higher. Women are estimated to control or influence 85% of consumer spending.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, even higher than I just guessed. That so holds true because I just, you know, I don't have anything in Nashville that I need. That is a workbench, PA powered screw, guns, trash bags, mops. So I went to Home Depot in Hermitage with the girls and I had the craziest list and I deployed them each with their own shopping cart to go grab stuff as I was grabbing. And yeah, so I never go to a store. But when I go to a store, buckle the fuck up, you know.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, you're really going for it.

[Dax Shepard]

I really spent a couple bucks over at Home Depot.

[Monica Padman]

Well, also because you don't like shopping, so you kind of have to get it all out of the way.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to go one time to one swoop Depot for the. Yeah. For the rest of my life. Which I already am home now. And I forgot got things.

[Monica Padman]

Whereas I like to just go. I'll just not Home Depot. But I like to just pop in, not even get anything.

[Dax Shepard]

My dad was like, you. And in fact, when I was at Home Depot with the girls, I said, is this so annoying? And they're like, no, this is super fun. And I'm like, oh, my God. My dad would want to go to Ace Hardware on Sundays. And I'd walk with him as he stared at every. Every product. I'm like, why are we in paint aisle? You're not intending on painting anything. He just wanted to see every product in the store, even if he's just going to get screws or something. And it was maddening, of course.

[Monica Padman]

What if he sees something he might want or get an inspiration?

[Dax Shepard]

He did. This does remind me of. What? I don't know why. This is one of the most, like, distinct memories I have of my father. I know I've told you this before, but we went to amp groceries store and I had to be fucked. We had a dog. So we only had a dog for a couple years when I was maybe nine or something. And we go into amp, we get all the groceries, and then we're on our way out and they've stacked all the dog food in, like, the breezeway. You know, in Michigan, there's always these buffers. You walk in one door because of the cold, and then there's another. And then this breezeway. My dad, like, threw a bag of dog food on the ground cart. I don't even know if I clocked it so much. But we get all the way to the car and my dad goes, you know what? When you steal things, things get stolen from you. What goes around comes around. And he walked all the way back in the store and he paid for the dog food, but he was stealing dog food with me there for about two minutes till we got to the car. But I guess more than I was disappointed that he stole. I was impressed that he stole and then. And then pivoted and was like, honest about.

[Monica Padman]

He couldn't really steal.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was like. It was a very, like. It's a weird mix of. He, like, he demonstrated a lot of integrity even though he had just stolen a bag of dog food in front of me. It's so memorable.

[Monica Padman]

I. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Did a shok ever steal sh.

[Monica Padman]

I hadn't heard that story.

[Dax Shepard]

Think it.

[Monica Padman]

No. God, no. Listen to me. Immigrants don't have the luxury of stealing. You're too scared.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right. You're right. Everyone already thinks they're stealing.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Everyone's already looking. Looking at them with like, you know, hawkeyes.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you pay for that? I think that every time I see a non white with a grocery. Grocery store at a. With a grocery cart, I go, did you pay for that?

[Monica Padman]

Did you even pay for that or like, they think if they're, like, Indian, they think like, oh, they don't speak. They don't even know that they're supposed to pay. Like, they think, like, they live in a, like, third world country and they.

[Dax Shepard]

Don'T understand all this stuff. Yeah. Because America is so much bounty. They just think it's all for free. By the way, do you think now non white sounds implicitly racist? I do.

[Monica Padman]

Non white.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Like, when you go like, there's some non whites, does that sound very scary to me?

[Monica Padman]

Yes. Okay. You know my stance on this. I don't like. And. And I. A lot of people have no issue with this, but I don't like, you know, taking the color, pluralizing it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And then making it the group of people.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I'm not for that.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, sure.

[Monica Padman]

Like the browns, the whites, the blacks. I'm not.

[Dax Shepard]

So.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, non whites would apply.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy.

[Monica Padman]

Anyway.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Bambi literally just sprinted through the backyard with Rhombus following her.

[Monica Padman]

Oh. Aw.

[Dax Shepard]

You can't imagine anything cuter than two little, tiny, tiny, tiny deer sprinting.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. Be careful with your cars.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I know. I was out for a ride on my electric motorcycle, and I came into the driveway kind of hot, and they were there, and they so spooked, and I got. I felt so terrible. I'm like, I gotta go so slow in my driveway.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's it. I mean, she was very factual, obviously.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So MLMs wild don't participate.

[Bridget Reed]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

One thing. I'm sad that we didn't plan ahead, but I wanted to have a friend on this fact check who has lived a big portion of her life sort of involved in an ML. Mlm. Well, not sort of. Definitely involved.

[Dax Shepard]

I do want to say that this episode makes me nervous because I would hate for anyone involved in one to think that I'm saying they're stupid or anyone involved is stupid, because I'm not at all.

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

I see anyone involved as someone who is industrious and wants to make a living and better their lives. And I admire the gumption and. And the sense of industriousness. And I just hope I want them to find one that'll work for them. But I don't think anyone is stupid for having been involved with one.

[Monica Padman]

I 100% agree. I just do think the system is quite predatory, especially based on all these facts we heard. And so. Yeah, but that's. Yeah, that has nothing to do with the type of person. Yeah, but I wanted her on. But we didn't plan it well, so maybe another time.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Well, that's it.

[Dax Shepard]

I love you.

[Monica Padman]

Love you.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, bye. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your pocket. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.