The Intro.

My Very First Blog So Please Be Warned As I Swear A Lot.

"How To Feck Up In MLM" Is My Crazy Often Funny And Personal Journey Seeking 'Financial Freedom', With The Focus Being ,To Help Anyone Else Steer Clear of Making The Same Mistakes I Did.

Hi my name is Kate, I am a digital nomad, entrepreneur, ex banker, lover of wine and all good people. This is my journey into the MLM, Multi Level Marketing space spanning the last 11 years or so. The next few blogs will hopefully explain a little of who I am, what I 'actually' do, where am I going and why am I blogging about all this very private 'stuff' and in particular all the highly embarrassing parts.

I basically fecked up for many years and multiple times, in fact so many times it is laughable and now I simply want to share these mistakes with anyone and everyone who has a passion for bettering their lives.

This is the story of how I managed to float around the world 'pretending' to be massively successful in a Network Marketing business for many years, when the truth is I was actually spending all of my savings, and not earning nearly the income that people 'thought' I was.

My life was a life that I had focussed on achieving for a very long time, including collecting new friends, lots more travel and creating that passive income for more money.

Except there was definitely not enough money being earned but most definitely some amazing memories made, funny and embarrassing. Some but not all of which I will come to later in the following blogs.

I have been blogging privately for 5 years now and keep notes all over the place as a diary of feck ups, fun and frolics on scraps of paper and my notepad.

The longer I have been in the business the more I have read, written, watched and listened to the most amazing gurus and mentors. I have notepads about notepads and always wanted to collate everything into some sort of educational fun piece. But, I was never sure what.

Thinking back to the books I had read and loved I wasn't sure if I was just meant to find them inspiring and amazing or did I actually really love them? Was I meant to love Eric Worre for example, or did I actually hang on every word because everyone else was...Eric still receives over 5 million views a week from his free videos that he produces for social media, the man is a genius! I do actually adore him and would recommend anyone involved in MLM or even just starting out to read his Go pro 7 Steps To Becoming A Network Marketing Professional. The beauty of his training is that it's Generic and that's what makes it brilliant for every single person and one of the best starting points for anyone 'lost' in the Networking jungle.

My advice is to 'Go and read it while you put your feet up, have 'one' glass of wine and read it again'.

So, back to the beginning of this blog...

There are a huge amount of points I agree with from a massive amount of books I have read. For example, I know how important it is to share your own story or read that great generic book that guides you on how to be successful, or to watch a video describing how to be financially free, a pdf that suggests simple maths can create a huge team, a youtube video explaining how to generate ten figures passively a month and finally how to still look fecking amazing in a bikini at 40 plus.

BUT and a huge BUT...speaking for myself and several hundred of my team members, I have for a very long time felt that there is a missing piece to the puzzle of MLM success. And that is quite simply 'What Not To Do'.

We all have so many lists, contact lists, who to call lists, who to follow up with lists , who to email lists. It's just data. We also have 'To Do' lists. Do a website, do a journal, do an event, do a zoom, do a training, do yoga, do meditation, do a podcast...do do do do fecking do. It never ends and can become quite overwhelming.

Honestly though my personal journey including my absolute utter fecking failings over the years is literally what drives me to write this blog and the crazy bat shit ideas that I had, the stupid massive mistakes I made and the complete and utter idiotic acts that got me nowhere in my first MLM business but penniless, a huge fake MLM success story and a possible small drink problem.

My aim for this series of blogs is to help others all around the world to save their precious time and for everyone to not repeat the mistakes I made, but rather to help them make money, achieve their dreams and goals in whatever Network they are part of and be that go to blog to feel it's ok to feck up and it's ok to be real and just be you.

I hope you keep smiling through your own journey, I love you all and wish you the very best on your own paths, so let's all say a huge Sauvignon Blanc 'Cheers' to fecking up!!! After all the feck ups always lead to something bigger and better as they're nothing but experiences.

Imagine This

I'm 40 years old, I have no children, I am living in an extremely smoggy town that actually stinks to high heaven every single day as the chimneys from the chemical factories release their pungent odours and gasses. I sit on my sofa most evenings, being squashed by my two Belgian Shepherd dogs while watching car crash TV...dreaming of a better free life far away!

The norm for me back then was to drink a bottle of wine each evening and smoke ten cigarette with the window blinds down, pretending I was happy, healthy and loving life. It wasn't that easy when all you want to do is escape to an island far away and drink coconut water from conch shells with a gorgeous handsome demigod for company.

The odd evening though I used to reach for my iPad and search 'Plenty Of Fish' for an online little chat.

However, this POF site was free and full 'fish' who would request a video call and want to see you at midnight...Hmmmm and as I was normally in my non matching pyjamas, hair scraped up in a messy messy bun, drinking wine, dried up rivers of mascara on my cheeks due to walking my dogs in the shitty rain, wearing poundland's finest reading glasses and therefore not looking anything at all like my glamorous profile picture. I would decline the offer of a video call and end the POF chat abruptly and stumble up to bed thinking I had been productive talking to Jim who wants to retire to a bungalow in a culdesac so he can see his grandkids once a month.

My 'normal' working day consisted of bashing the alarm clock on its head at 5.30 am, pulling on my waterproof trousers over my pyjama bottoms and walking my dogs. I passed the same dog walkers who also wore 5 layers of clothing, a hat, scarf and dog poo bags swinging from their gloved hands. I then came home, fed the dogs, washed the mud from under them in the rear garden, pulled my bed socks out of my wellies and threw their coats in the washing machine. I made a cuppa, headed for the shower and was in the company BMW by 7am, hair and makeup done wearing one of my several power suits and shocking red lipstick and ready to sit on the motorway in slow traffic.

I worked for an American bank which was the reason I was on the road for most days of the week as they wanted UK clients and therefore data. I was actually sitting in traffic lanes all across the UK and feeling like all the other millions of people doing the same that worked 8am till 6pm. Like An Ant.

I wished every single day that I was somewhere else doing something else, rather than going into mind numbingly boring Corporate Bank bullshit. I wanted to be somewhere that was warm and sunny with a beach and mountains and a gorgeous Vespa riding, surfer blonde boyfriend called Brad.

A, I can't surf, B, I've never really been attracted to blondes and C, I was obviously watching far too many Julia Roberts films.

My boss was extremely happy with me though as he could order his new Porsche and still sit at home in his big underpants and slippers while zooming from Washington. He told us all that the team and I were doing just great and to keep going, doing what we were doing best. He supported us and knew we were fantastic, he also always thanked us every single week for our hard work and told us it would be a great Christmas party.... That he never turned up to. EVER.

It was at about this time that I remember seeing a poster on some new social media platform...The picture was of a guy in a suit leaning on a bright red new Ferrari looking 'boss like' and his speech bubble said "Don't you just love working so hard that your boss can afford a new Ferrari" That was me and 'Not fecking really' I used to think.

My life wasn't always like this.

I was brought up in South Africa for the first few years until I was 6. My dad was originally from Leeds in the UK and my mum from the shit hole of a town I was living in at the time. I had the most amazing life in Africa, I had no shoes, but I did have a wonderful outdoor sunny fun life. I remember being one of the little local kids, always in the mud, climbing the hills or heuwel's as we knew them and telling lies to my mum as to where we had all been to. The Ostrich's flew past the kitchen window all day long, we had sacks of 'Narchies' by the back door, a Boxer dog called Bess who went mad after a litter of pups and ate the farmers chickens, but honestly a great life. I was a dusty free spirit living on farms in Namaqualand, the edge of the Zambezi river in a converted Bedford bus, while my dad fixed Land Rovers on diamond mines and went out into the bush with the Geologists mapping the area. Mum looked after my brother and I, took in lodgers and had a few secretarial jobs. I still remember this life and miss it.

Once we landed in the UK I was physically thrown into school out of another beaten up Land Rover and made to wear shoes and pull my socks up. I still don't like shoes very much and even now I am sat here barefoot.

I did meet a friend or two at this Junior school and one of them was called Jane. Now, she is extremely important as she has been on this journey with me and has fecked up as many times as I have. To say the least, we have outdone most MLM leaders in terms of being 'skint' and by that we mean northern slang for penniless and 'Naive'. My best friend she is still to this day

The journey will all come clear but for now, let's say we had a lot of 'skint fun'.

Prior to working for the bank I did manage to escape the chemical town for a few years and went to sunny Spain as I had a car crash and needed to take a year out from my lovely air hostessing career.

This was actually not just lip gloss, hats and high heels pulling wheelie trolly's through the airports, but bloody hard work, stupidly long hours, fat ankles, rude passengers and bread buns you cannot possibly fit onto 365 meal trays, three times in one flight to the States. Impossible. Hence my nickname from the Galley was "fecking buns".

So off I went with my ex partner after my car crash, limping a lot and yet so excited to start this new life. We set up in southern Spain and had a great start as we were walking distance to the beaches, we made new friends and had an amazing time. Life experiences were plentiful and if I were to tell you them all you wouldn't believe most of them. It was just so different to anything we had both ever known.

Then one day 6 years later out of the blue I was finally an adult and wanted a career. I wanted him to have a career too. So we sold up and went back to the UK and started afresh. We found a small and very cute apartment on a cobbled street in a northern town called Macclesfield. A very lovely market town with lots of charity shops, our college and organic markets but not much more than that.

Fast forward the boring part as the ex cheated a few years later while he was at University as an older mature student, so we broke up, I was devastated so I sold our house and everything in it. I then booked a ferry back to Spain and drove my Alfa Romeo GTV with Sam my St. Bernard dog hanging out of the window all the way..

What else was there to do?

My gorgeous baby's slobber was fine and the hairs not too bad flying around my head but his farts from the tranquillisers were horrific. It was a really cool trip, he was a super adorable softie and looking back I loved every minute and wish he was still here to fart away as much as he wanted and cover me in slobber. I miss him dearly.

Now that trip back to spain didn't quite work out either. Running away normally doesn't.

The friend I was going to work with was marrying the boss and was pregnant so suddenly she was part of a different group and tended to wear high heels instead of flip flops and was now a member of the golf club, she played tennis, wore designer clothes and was now drinking bubbles and not beer. Basically she had gone up a notch or two and good for her I say. However she wasn't allowed to hang out with us minions anymore.

Her name was Holly and I will come back to her later on.

Fast forward many more boring parts and I ended up leaving the company and going back to the UK, buying another house and working for the American bank I mentioned. I dated via the internet some complete and utter ass holes for ten years, including midgets, stalkers, drug addicts, alcoholics, fitness freaks and a lottery winner who I later found out actually lived with his mum in a caravan on an open all year round static park in Blackpool.

My friends on several occassions asked me to never settle down as my dating stories were so funny.

For them yes, for me it was never ending.

The final straw of my blind internet dating saga was when I met a guy for a date and he was very tiny, almost midget like and we went on a walking date. He brought with him his midget dogs and I brought my big boy Belgium Sheps and we wandered around a small reservoir together. There wasn't much conversation as we walked and I think we both realised we weren't exactly physically matched or matched at all in any way to be fair. I don't know what happened exactly but his dogs just seemed to run away into the overgrown long grass that surrounded the waters edge and he ran after them and just disappeared. Poof gone. All I heard him squeak was "Betty!!!! Billy!!!! Come back"

It was at this point that I stood there and thought WTAF, however I shouted "Where are you?" and he responded with "I am over here follow my voice"

I stopped still and thought 'I can't fecking do this', I can't possibly lose a midget in the grass while on a date! What the actual feck am I doing here. It was all too much for me to bare, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So my mind was made up there and then, no more cyber dating.

Just before I tell you how I got into the MLM space, I must tell you that I was actually quite poorly. Women's 'stuff' and put it this way I actually begged the surgeon for a hysterectomy and finally got one. Only after a row in his office with the paperwork going back and forth across his desk but he eventually agreed and I was booked in.

So, at the age of 40 I was unmarried with no children and never going to have any children of my own, I had no partner, two smelly gorgeous dogs, a job I was so bored in, no real social life unless you call sitting in the pub every Saturday evening with my brother and his girlfriend, and to top it off a company BMW car I was paying too much tax for.

But I did have my little fantasy of Surfer Brad in Bali.

Lucky me.

Then one day not long after my operation an ex boyfriend came to visit me so he could fit some lights in my new house. We were still friends and so he stayed for dinner and we chatted like the old days, except he was now sober. Which was a good sign that he had moved on.

He said he had a great present for me....

To put you in the picture his last great 'apparent' present was his mums engagement ring. He had knocked at my door one evening years before, on one knee with a huge bunch of flowers and a massive box of chocolates and I had to say no thank you. I did let him in first I'm not that heartless.

So this was a pretty tense moment to say the least. In fact my first thought was 'Oh feck' and my second was 'Oh shit, not again'.

So my head bent down while I filled the dishwasher and I said quite calmly, "Oh thanks thats nice, what is it?". Trying to hold the tiny bit of vomit back that had just hit my mouth.....He grabbed my arm gently and sat me down on the sofa.

Again I thought "Oh shit" However he showed me a DVD as it was a feewyears back and said "We are watching this, you need this in your life"

'Thank feck for that' I thought.

Then I thought "Shit.....What if it's Porn" It's only 2 O'clock in the afternoon and I've not had any wine and I don't like you anymore like that anyway. thanks for fixing my lights but.... Feck feck feck.

The DVD was a film called 'The Secret', and as far from Porn as you can ever imagine.

That afternoon honestly changed my life for the better.

So thank you Del, thank you for introducing me to something that completely altered the direction of my path, my future, my attitude, my thought processes, my bank balance, my choice in men and mostly for the experiences because without you sharing this with me that day I wouldn't be here writing this.

I understood two hugely important things that day, firstly, that I could actually get out of the hell hole stinky town on my own and secondly only I could do it. I was responsible for my life and my choices. Where had I been all these years...I had been stuck in my own sorrow thats where.

This film and all the subsequent hundreds of books and films that I have watched and read over the years since that night have all taught me 'something'. All the courses I have completed, all the vision boards I have created, and all the magazines I have cut up and used cheap sticky glue to pop a photograph of a mansion house or boat on for a vision board. It's all been worth it because even if we don't like it we always learn from it.

There is actually a very funny vision board blog coming...

That night I couldn't sleep and woke up at 2am and I jumped up and headed next door to my office and sat at my desk and wrote a list of what I wanted. My list of desires, my list of where I want to be and my list of how I was going to be Happy, Healthy, Wealthy and Free.

It Went Like This

Find a business where I can work from home

Find a business where I can work anywhere in the world

Find a business where I can be my own boss

Find a business I can make new friends

Find a business I can earn money every day if I get up or not.

Find the perfect man for me. Not perfect, just perfect for me.

You see, at the beginning we are very selfish in our MLM journeys, as it is all about us and what WE want. There is nothing wrong with that at all as we all have to have goals and dreams. But there comes a time when we realise the more people we help the better we become.

Disclaimer 1. 'This blog contains discriminatory content which some may find offensive'

Disclaimer 2. “This is a work of creative non-fiction. All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of the author’s memory. Some names and identifying features have been changed to protect the identity of certain parties. The author in no way represents any company, corporation, or brand, mentioned herein. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.”