We helped a couple in our group go Emerald, and they unfortunately experienced the same hostility from Kerry and Chris, and then the same wrath from Zack for discussing it. The four of us seemed to have been branded as disloyal. For reasons we would not understand until years later, we still very much believed in Zack and the integrity of this great business. We decided we would both go Diamond, and then the truth would be clear to Zack and Molly. We would be free to build our organizations without interference. In the meantime, we wrapped our people in a protective cocoon of silence. We let no one in our organizations know of the challenges we were facing. Maybe this was just the trial that God would use to mold and shape us, as we became Diamonds. However, we needed to make sure that all people in our organization would be treated with dignity and respect.

Kerry had been running security at the large seminars for Zack. He recruited some of my Direct distributors to act as his informal police force. Some carried guns in ankle holsters or fanny packs. We found out that they were in charge of counting large quantities of cash from the door sales of leadership tickets. They did this in a secret location, loading the cash into a briefcase or suitcase, and then getting it onto Zack’s coach. A volunteer staff of Direct distributors, who were thankful to serve the group, ran these large seminars, which had thousands in attendance. Some of my leaders would pay over $400 as a couple to get to a seminar, and then they would work the entire weekend, missing almost every speaker.

Zack entrusted me with the job of running the backstage of these seminars. I would coordinate with the hosts assigned to each speaker. We would ensure that a limousine was at the airport to pick them up on time. The hosts were also responsible to get the speaker backstage a half-hour before they were to speak. This gave me direct contact with many of the Diamonds as well as the highest level of religious and political leaders in the country. It was an exciting duty, but it was also grueling. I’d be on my feet from about 8:00 a.m. until 2:00 a.m. each day. We, too, had paid over $400 to attend, but Kathy would sit alone at a table up front reserved for Emeralds and Diamonds. Now, we did get a break on ticket sales for these seminars. For some of these huge events, Kathy and I would have brought 10% of the entire crowd. For that, we received about a $400 break for ticket sales. So it was a wash for us financially rather than an income source.

Some of my Directs really needed to attend the seminar meetings to build their confidence. It bothered me that, being on duty, they missed the entire seminar, and their businesses were not growing. I asked Kerry to rotate different crews through this duty, but that did not ever happen. He had developed a few that were totally loyal to him, and they would do whatever he asked. Some, despite terrible financial condition, were even asked to use their own funds to purchase high-end, handheld CB radios to run Zack’s seminars. I told them not to buy their own; after all, Zack could afford it. This seemed like taking advantage. Things that I spoke out against like this further branded me as being disloyal. I was loyal, very loyal, to my upline and my downline both. Why was it wrong if I tried to help? I was beginning to get confused.

Now, after a couple thousand hours of tapes, there was no limit as to what I would do for my business or my organization. I developed kidney stones one day and barely made it to the hospital emergency room. The medical staff administered morphine several times, but this gave me no relief. I had never experienced pain like that before. I thought they were giving me a placebo, because the pain did not subside. They finally hit me with a harder narcotic that gave me a merciful numbness.

What a relief! I had to get out of there! I had committed to doing an open opportunity meeting in Zack’s group, to be held at a large hotel several hours away in Philadelphia. I left the hospital in a very weak, but pain-free state. I found a couple distributors who could drive me down. After a quick shave and shower, I slid into a fresh suit and eased myself gingerly into the car. I was in relatively good shape by the time we arrived.

The host was in the lobby waiting to greet us. I did not initially mention the day’s events as that would be "passing negative." The host went to the podium and began my introduction. As was my habit, I said a silent prayer and prepared to reach anyone in the room that wanted to make their life better. By the time I walked to the podium, I was fully energized. The meeting went well, and I spoke with great enthusiasm for about an hour and a half. I was really starting to hurt by the end but was able to mask the pain. After the meeting, we greeted guests and answered questions. Once all the prospects left, we got together with the distributors for a late night teaching meeting called a "nuts and bolts" session. The pain was intensifying rapidly.

Fortunately, I was able to make it though and fulfill my responsibilities. How could I teach my leaders commitment if I did not live it? Thank God, the host for the evening was a dentist. He drove us to an all-night pharmacy and got me some pills to knock me out for the return trip. We headed back up the long, dark highway with a tape playing, and I drifted off to sleep. I felt content in knowing that I was doing all I could do, and we would soon be at the Diamond level.

On another occasion, I had committed to fly to Baton Rouge to do meetings for Paul and Tammy. They were ready to get their business going. I bought the ticket, cleared my schedule, and coached Paul on how to invite people, so we would have some successful meetings. A day before I left, it began to rain unceasingly. It was one of those heavy, drenching rains. It rained all day and throughout the night. The creek across from our home had risen alarmingly, but there was nothing that I could do to stop it. I’m not Moses.

I could, however, keep my word to my family and a couple far away, who were counting on me. I went to our airport and settled into a window seat. I peered into the gloom as we took off, noticing that as we circled to gain altitude, we actually flew directly over my neighborhood. My home was completely surrounded by dark, muddy floodwaters that had spilled over the bank. My family was safe, since they were out of the house. Most people would have cancelled the trip, but then again, most people would never be Diamonds.

A travel seminar was arranged for all Direct distributors and above—a cruise to Alaska. It was promoted for quite a long time, as ‘every leader will be there.’ I was concerned about the expense, since some of these trips (none of which we had ever missed) had cost as much as $2,000 in airfare, hotels, and meeting fees. We were barely able to borrow enough to keep going at this point. But we figured we had to be close to our big paycheck soon. Once everyone was excited about the trip that ‘every leader would be on,’ the cost was announced: $5,000.00. I was shocked. None of us could afford that!

We had to book the trip with a special form through a specific travel agency chosen by Zack. No exceptions to this were allowed. A woman in our organization who was an inactive Silver (Direct) and owner of a travel agency would later tell us that this was nearly double the cost of what she could have booked for the group. Every ‘leader’ had to put down a $1,000 deposit on faith, and the rest was collected in increments. Not only were the Directs pressured to prove their ‘leadership’ by doing this, non-Directs were pressured as well. At one seminar of thousands, all distributors were advised to put down their $1,000 on faith that they would go Direct in time to qualify for the trip.

If they had not become Directs by then, they could not go, because this was a trip only for Directs. There would be absolutely no refunds. We had distributors at only 1,000 PV ‘prove their faith’ by putting down their non-refundable $1,000 deposit. Many were advised to walk by faith not sight. Faith was defined as believing what could be, not what was actually in front of them at that moment. It was a fiasco. We had many distributors in our organization lose their whole deposit. We later learned that Zack and Molly, however, enjoyed the trip, staying in a sprawling presidential suite with a private outside deck. On one excursion to shore, Molly bought a five-carat ring.

Kathy and I worked and struggled, and there was no possible way for us to come up with the additional $4,000. We, of course, as leaders, had scraped together and mailed in our $1,000 non-refundable deposit. We were tapped out and had nowhere else we could possibly borrow the money. We were now in a terrible predicament. But as leaders, we had to promote this trip and were pushed to ‘get our numbers up.’ This was another opportunity for our leaders to spend personal time with Zack and Molly. We were told that alone was worth more than $5,000 if they applied what they learned.

We called Zack and told him we could not make it. He was disappointed that I was not being more of a possibility thinker. He asked if we could borrow the money we needed in order to go on this trip. He knew from counseling us that we were completely tapped out, but I ashamedly, once again, repeated the current status of our exhausted finances and burgeoning debt. He thought for a minute and advised me that I should sell Amway vacuum cleaners to raise the money. He was pathetically out of touch with the reality of how his distributors lived. This trip was not a good idea, and I resented that we, along with our leaders, were being pressured to waste our meager resources on something so opulent. Not a single one of us would have chosen to do this on our own.

How many vacuum cleaners would I have to sell to make the additional $4,000? We had never been able to sell a single vacuum cleaner outside of the organization. They cost about $300 more than one from Wal-Mart and are incredibly heavy. He chided us and reminded us that we had a few months left, and he knew that I was a resourceful leader and would come up with the money somehow.

We were not able to do this and were at the point where we could not justify it with our devastated financial picture. At the last minute, we sent, in shame, a voice mail to our leaders saying that we were running for a big goal, and Zack suggested that we stay home and hit it. It was a lie, and I felt terrible. They were very disappointed, as quite a few were going on this trip and hoped that we could spend a lot of time with them. They were our leaders and closest friends. We agonized over our situation. In almost a decade, we had never missed a single leadership meeting, except when I was in Paul’s wedding. We pressed on harder toward our Diamond goal to make up for it.

As we built toward Diamond, the group, as a whole, began to get a great deal of flack from two web sites off the Internet. One site was hosted by a man named Sidney Schwartz. His web site was called Amway the Untold Story. A man named Ashley Wilkes created and hosted a site called AMO’s: The Nightmare Builders? Ashley was the one who coined the term Amway Motivational Organization (AMO). We would be out showing the plan, and prospects would have twenty pages of negative garbage printed off these sites. I often thought that these two guys were real losers. Who else would take so much time out of their lives to put down a good and honorable business? Despite how bizarre Dexter seemed, the business itself was principled and was predicated upon servant hood. I thought at times about meeting the two men and beating them unmercifully. They were the enemy. I hoped something terrible would happen to them both. They were evil. They were a threat to my family’s future. (The indoctrination had worked all too well.)

The Amway business and its related system had by now completely taken ownership of nearly every aspect of our lives. Due to the gradual indoctrination over years, we were completely unaware of what was happening. We had surrendered our life, all our money, our careers, and our family time to what we believed was "our" business. We had lost touch with most of our extended family members and any friends outside of The Business. We no longer seemed to have much in common with them. We maintained a few relationships but spent very little time with non-Amway people.

Seldom could we schedule any social event as The Business now took nearly every weekend. In the rare event we could get together with a friend or family member on the outside, we had very little we could talk about. We no longer watched the news, listened to the radio, or read newspapers. We knew almost nothing of current events. They did not want to be recruited into Amway, and The Business was all we now knew how to talk about with any confidence.

Deep inside we knew something was wrong but did not know what. In our minds, The Business was only a financial vehicle to give our family a secure future and time together. The destruction of our family unit and marriage was so gradual we hadn’t noticed it happening. On one level, we were very unhappy; but on the other hand, we felt that we were close to what we had worked so hard to achieve. There was no turning back. That was not an option we could even conceive. By now, we had been thoroughly convinced that this was the only way we could succeed and serve our God and family to our highest potential.

I was gone constantly. My used Cadillac now had over 200,000 miles on it. When I was home, I was useless. I felt like such a failure. Distributors were so strongly conditioned, that many of us felt guilty when we were home, because we were not out being productive for the ones we loved. It was awful. I would be at home for a few minutes with the people I loved most in life, and I would feel guilty for being there. We were quickly going broke, despite our supposed incredible success advertised by our upline. We felt enormous guilt for being at this level and making less than what we believed everyone else was making. We were successful failures. I had to push on to Diamond. It was the only option.

Kathy and I handled these stresses differently. A year after we made our exodus from Amway, she explained that she had to withdraw emotionally from me just to survive. She lived in fear every night that I would die on the road. Distributors had died on the road, and we knew some that had had terrible car accidents. I was running in a near constant state of exhaustion, and the rumble strips on the side of the highway woke me up more than once as my car ran off the road.

We were both very unhappy but did not speak of it, as that would be "passing negative" and showing a lack of faith. I felt miserable and believed that I was a total failure as a husband, father and leader. On the outside, we were the perfect picture of success, but we were going further and further into debt to travel to these mandatory lifestyle/travel meetings that Zack planned in places like Hawaii or Florida. We looked great! We wore tuxedos and gowns and were cheered with standing ovations at seminars we attended. Some success! We looked good on the outside, but we were just plain dead broke.