I get the machine. I cut his hair in front of everybody. Complete humiliation. This guy is looking at me just smiling, but you could tell he's just wanting to cry. And I couldn't stand myself. I would look in the mirror and I would be disgusted with myself. My name is Emanuel Rosales. I was in PHP for about four years. Um, and I am now 29 years old.

>> So, tell me, how did you get recruited into this amazing company?

I got started in PHP when I was um 18 actually.

>> Oh wow. Okay. Okay. So tell me tell me how that happened.

>> Yeah. So I I was um going to college at the time and one day decided it wasn't really for me. I just you know I was going to college just to go. But um I decided to take a break. Um my classes ended in December. I was taking a break. Um, but that break went on to about April and I was at home and I remember that it was uh actually my cousin that got me into PHP. Um, it was at a family party. I was right there playing FIFA actually on at home and I was so good at it at the time. I was telling him like, "Hey, look, um, nobody could beat me." And he's like, "Let me get it. Let me give it a shot." And of course he doesn't. And he's like, "Man, imagine you were this good at something that actually made you money." And I was like, like, you know, just that little comment had me thinking like, what does he mean by that, you know? And then that's when he started telling me about that he he was in this company that um there's this guy that was making so much money that he could be making money while he's sleeping, while he's, you know, doing whatever he wants. And it it sounded interesting. So I was like, "Yeah, tell me more about it." And um he he told me he's like, "Hey, there's there's an event going on on Tuesday." Um I could just bring you there and maybe they they could explain it better than I could, but from what it sound from what he had told me though, it sounded really good. Dressing up in suit and tie. I mean, just you know, being in an office setting, I was like, "Yeah, man. Who could say no to that?"

So yeah, Tuesday rolls around, he comes and picks me up, head down to the office, and um we get to the office. I mean, it was kind of everything that I I was thinking about. People in suit ties, you know, guys looking super professional, girls looking super professional. And I was like, this is this is where I want to be. And um that same night um I got I got my we used to call it like getting coded because that was when you would get your your PHP code number. Um so that night I knew that I this is what I wanted to do and um I didn't have the money of course at the time. It was $150 to get started. Um, since I didn't have the money, I had to ask my parents to see if they could let me borrow the money or just sponsor me, they would call it. And, um, my parents, I mean, just to see me, you know, succeed or or or just be happy. I guess they were like, "Sure, we'll we'll pay for the $150." Um, they would say that the $150 was to get books, but there was no book. I mean, it was just like a little chart and and that was about it. I mean, it was just like a PHP story chart thing that we would use and that was a chart that we would use to actually recruit agents with. So, there was no books. It was just this flip chart that you know and um and yeah, I got started there. That's so that's that's when I got started when I was 18 years old.

Reminds me a lot of my uh experience with my best friend from high school who got recruited to World Financial Group basically fresh out of high school. And uh a lot of people don't know but Patrick Bed David got his start in World Financial Group. You can find videos where he talks about starting in World Financial Group. So I mean to me at least it's obvious where he got the idea for PHP. A lot of the uh rank names like senior marketing director. They're exactly taken from World Financial Group. They're exactly the same. As well as uh like the commission percentage when you're at the starting you only get 25% and then you move on and blah blah blah.

>> Okay. But what was that first meeting like when you went there to PHP? What was what were they training you about? Was it mostly about recruiting or were they actually talking about finance and insurance products and stuff like that?

>> Yeah. No. Um when I went in um I had no idea what to expect and so I didn't even know if it was insurance. So I remember that they put all of our the guests um into this separate room while the agents stayed behind. So, I remember that I was just like, "Okay, I'm just going to follow everybody here." We went into this little room and then they pull up a PowerPoint where they're explaining um the insurance was like towards the end. They were talking about lifestyle, you know, she was the the the one doing the presentation, her name was Erica Del Toro. She was actually one of the um she was the one that started the PHP office here in Bakersfield, uh California, where I'm from. and she was um doing a presentation about talking about her life story mostly that she was an immigrant came here she started a business and all these things and so I'm right there listening like I could relate to this right so nothing is being talked about the insurance product nothing is being talked about anything besides her story and how much money she's making now and so I was right there 18 years old in the back listening to the the money potential and and tell her story about, you know, um struggling and all these things that I could relate to. So, I'm over here just like, "Wow, this is great." And then she tells us that we help people with finances and that we help people secure their retirement that that there's this big lumpsum amount of baby boomers that are retiring that are going to be transferring wealth and that we they need help dealing with all this money that's going to be transferred and so they need more agents and that's why we were there. And I'm right there like, "Oh yeah, like if I could get a small percentage of that pie, I'll make millions." So I'm like, "Yes, let's let's do it." And so they called it finance. They called it securing people's retirements, securing people's legacies. Um, you know, they that's what they called it. It was So they didn't really mention insurance like a life insurance product being that the the thing that was going to get them there. They just mentioned that it was finance. And so that was that was my my my that was my uh first exposure to BHB about talking about finances and the wealth transfer that was going to be happening in the next few years.

>> Yeah. So I mean to an 18-year-old who's, you know, was sitting on his couch playing FIFA basically a moment before to hear about all this fancy sounding finance financial whatever they were calling it. Um, it sounds like uh, you know, a lot of people comment on my videos and they're like, "Oh, if you if you fall for this, you're an idiot." And I'm like,

>> in my mind, I'm like, "How could you not fall for it given the circumstances?" You know, it's like you have no real life experience. Somebody is, you know, somebody who seems like a nice person is telling you about how their life has changed from this. Naturally, we want to believe people. It's like, there's a bunch of other people in this room with me dressed up in suits saying that they're telling the truth. So, it's like, how could you not at least want it to be true, you know?

>> Um,

>> right. Yeah. No, I I when I started that night, the next morning I went in to do my they call it your fast start.

>> And, uh, what they do is they right away they brought me back in the next day. Um, there was this guy was like, "Hey, give me here's a there's this list the top 25 people that you know. Write them down here." Whether that's people that have a business, your aunts and uncles, anybody that you feel like would benefit from these products, go ahead and write them down here. Um, so this top part, put people that would be interested in maybe getting a product or securing their retirement or or getting an insurance policy. And then the bottom half, put people that you know that might be interested in in doing this with you so that you could grow your business. And then I remember that that's when they brought me back to to the room where there was this big whiteboard and the guy that was training me uh doing my fast chart, he was like writing every single promotion on the chart, 30%, 40%, everything. And he was working his way down all the way to to marketing director, senior marketing director. And I remember this vividly, Marco, I I'm right there seeing these um promotions and I'm thinking, how could I recruit more than 10 people? I I barely know myself like five people. So, how am I going to get there? But this guy's telling me like, you don't need to have a war a war market because you we we will train you to find people that are interested in this. And I remember vividly this guy comes in, his name is Hector Del Toro, brother of Erica Del Toro, walks in and he's like, "What are you doing explaining to him, marketing director and senior marketing director, the the most this guy's ever going to get to is about field associate at 50%." He's like, "So why even bother spending an extra 30 minutes explaining to this guy this?" And I remember just thinking to myself, why why wouldn't he, right? I'm thinking, you know, I'm going to prove this guy wrong. I'm going to go out there and I'm going be become a marketing director and I'm going to go out there and show them what I could do. And so it was like this fire that that like wasn't like ignited in me to be able to go and prove them wrong. And sure enough, I go back, I start writing my top 25. I barely put maybe 15 people on there. And the guy tells me, "This is what really sells me." He's like, "Okay, out of these people right here, who would be the most interested to get started with you?" And I said, "Okay, this guy." And he's like, "Okay." and he picks up the phone and he calls him right there, right in front of me, live without any hesitation. And he calls him, my buddy answers and he's like, "Hey, Emanuel just got started with us. He's doing this. He's doing that. He told me you're sharp. You're you're outgoing. You're you're the type of person that that would be interested in doing something like this. When when can I have you come into my office so I could tell you more about what Emanuel's going to be doing?" And then my buddy's like, "Oh, I could go in tomorrow." like, okay. And he does it right in front of me, Marco. So, I'm seeing this like, man, this guy, this guy is good at what he does. And he showed me live right there, the potential of of actually having the confidence to talk to somebody like that. And so that like all these little things, you know, like how you said, most people say, how how could somebody get started in a business like this? Like you could tell right away it's a scam or, you know, you how could you be such an idiot to fall for something like this? But at the time, like I said, I'm I'm 18 years old and naive. this guy's doing this right in front of me, you know, like and so it's it to me it was it was kind of like they was called it selling the dream. It was selling me the dream, the potential of what I could potentially be if I stuck through it, you know?

So, >> yeah. So, when he was initially saying like, "Oh, this guy's only ever going to make it to Field Associate or whatever." Was that his way of being like like challenging you like some tough love sort of thing or what was his goal with that aside from being an [ __ ]

>> Right. Um, I think that he was trying to be an [ __ ] I think um when historically they would recruit people my age at 18 years old, the chances of them they we call them dying out in the business was very high. So they would to me he uh at the time you know I in my eyes I was uh when I first heard that I I was thinking oh he's trying to fire me up like trying to kind of challenge me and see what I could really do. But no at the time after I realized no he was just trying to get me out of there right because he knew that they were just going to take my war market. They were going to go and sell to my family and recruit a couple of my friends and that was it, right? They were gonna just like um we call it like squeeze me like they'll squeeze me like a lemon for what I had. So that's why he didn't want him spend time because I was like in his eyes I was going to quit right away so why spend time on me?

>> Yeah, true. It it is kind of clever what he did after that too though which is like looking at the list that you were working on and calling the person that you said was most likely to join or your closest friend or whatever. It almost gave that instant social proof or that instant like I don't know appeal to appeal to authority fallacy. I'm not sure

>> where it's like this guy is claiming to be big, you know, macho businessman and then he goes and calls somebody and essentially closes them right there or at least gets a meeting booked with them. In your 18-year-old mind, maybe you're thinking, "Oh, this might actually be easier than I initially thought." But is it really that impressive what he did? Because he's calling the person that you said was like the most likely

>> to join. You know, I think you your your hunch was correct in my experience because I mean, forget my experience. Just math would tell you that you're correct. Think of how many people you know. You're going to tap that uh market very quickly. You know, most people are not going to sign up under you. your your mom and your brother and your sister and like most people are not going to actually hand over their money for whatever it is you're trying to get them to do. And when they say that they're going to train you to get more people, it's like you and I both know what that actually means. It's DMing people incessantly. It's pretending to have friendships with people so that you can, you know, sit on the couch and play FIFA with them, but actually you want them to join this or going to Walmart and Target and saying, "Hey, I love those shoes." and and whatever else.

Okay. So, so what what happens after this point when your friend uh comes in for the meeting?

>> Yeah. Um my friend comes in, he actually gets recruited. He gets recruited and um and then after that, I mean, like how you said it with him calling him, you know, closing him to to come in and he actually comes in and gets recruited. That right there was that proof that it does work that that um that I could potentially become someone like him where I have that confidence because maybe at the time I didn't have that confidence. Maybe at the time I didn't have that that vision that I could be somebody more than just a college student and and work a normal 9 to5. And so yeah, he my friend comes in, he gets recruited. I actually recruit um two two people that that the very next day was one of my that the the buddy that he called and then another girl that I went to high school with. So then but the girl that comes in to get recruited, she comes in, her mom is in the car because she's also 18 years old. She doesn't drive. So mom's in the car and then they tell her, "Hey, bring your mom up here so we could explain to her what you're going to be doing." Mom ends up getting a policy. And now they come up to me and they're like, "Hey, Emanuel, guess what? You're at two recruits already your first day." and now you're getting a a policy. Her her mom's getting a policy and now that's gonna account for your your base shop as well. So now your team is growing your very next day. And so they're hyping me up, right? And I'm I'm over here super excited because I'm like, nobody else is getting this type of recognition. Like I must be doing something right. Everybody's happy for me. And that's where I get to meet Alejandro Alejandro Aguilar. I get to meet him when his very early days in PHP. And I remember that he comes up to me and he congratulates me on on what I'm doing and he tells me, "Hey, you know what? Like you you you're going to do good in this industry. I could see myself in you. I could see myself in you. So I know that if I guide you and I take you under my wing, you could potentially become, you know, successful in this industry." And and that right there to me, it's like there when I was there at the office, Marco, there was no one that was like kind of my age range. everybody was a little bit older, you know, like this were the ethnicities that I couldn't really relate to. So having Alejandro Aguilar, Hispanic, you know, he was about 23, 24 at the time, tell me this, it was like this this recognition that said, you know what, this is concrete evidence that there is potential here.

So after that, that's when I start um I started uh getting trained by Alejandro how to recruit whether it was he told me he's like go out there like where we were at in our office. He's like I want you to go out there. We have a lot of you know little stores and businesses close by a Jack in the Box you know these like a little arcade. He's like I want you to go out there and and go get 20 nos. go out there and and how you said I would go up to people and this was literally my script. I will go up to somebody's like, "Hey, man. I like your your shoes. You look pretty sharp." What do you do for a living? Oh, I do I do um I work at a bank. Oh, okay. So, you work at a bank? Yeah. How do you like it? H it's good. Do you see yourself doing that for the next 10 years? No, not really. I'm like, what would you like to see yourself doing? I haven't really thought about it. Hey, well, guess what? I'm also like that. I just started working at an office. We're expanding. We're growing. Um I wanted to see if you if I could get your number, I could tell you a little bit more about it. How does that sound? Sure enough, a lot of times people just so that they could, you know, that people that don't know don't know how to say no or or they're just trying to get rid of you so that you can stop talking to them. Yeah. They'll give me their numbers. A lot of times though, it wouldn't work. But

>> yeah,

>> I went out there. I remember that my very first guy that I I tried to prospect, he completely just belittled me. I I felt like I was just like rethinking everything. Like, is this even going to work? This guy just made fun of me essentially. And And now I got to go get 19 more nos. And I And I did. I went and got 19. No. I went and got um 20 more nos. But on my 21st, I I called it like, okay, I got 20 nos. I didn't get no yeses. I was so excited. Honestly, look, I was so excited to go back and tell Alejandro I got the 20 nos he told me to go get. But as I'm making my way back, I I walk the whole little area around our office. I stop at a Jack in the Box to get a water cup. The manager's there and he's talking to me a lot like, "Hey man, you look sharp and everything like he's kind of prospecting me." So I'm like, "This is a perfect perfect opportunity to try to recruit this guy." I tell him what I do. He actually gives me his number. So my 21st attempt, he gets me his number. I bring him to the office and he gets recruited. So I'm like, "That's the secret. You go and get 20 nos and that it works, right?

>> Huzzah. Yeah. Yeah,

>> it works. By the way, for people who don't know, I did a debate with Alejandro Aguilar on my channel two years ago, maybe more than two years ago before I had even released my in-depth video breaking down Patrick's MLM uh PHP or talking to any former members. Uh it's a it's an absolutely otherworldly bizarre uh you know, interview to go go watch just seeing how uh I guess in the Matrix this guy is how much he he mimics Patrick and uh just reads off the script. It's like you're talking to a a machine or an AI, something like that. But I'm actually curious, Emanuel, I'm talking like Patrick right now. I'm actually curious. Um what uh what did the first guy say, the one who was um who who belittled you? What did he actually say to you?

Well, I was kind of stalking him in a way. I was um it was a Barnes & Noble. So, where's we're like in this this the book section where it's like self-development books. And so, this guy right, he's he's obviously uh pretty sharp looking guy, you know, he's he's reading a self-development. He's looking for a self-development book. And so I'm kind of like making sure that he's like by himself, not really talking to other people because I'm thinking, you know, if he rejects me, no one else is going to be around to be able to like be like, "Ah, look at this guy got turned down, right?" So I'm kind of stalking him and he kind of notices it. And so when I and I'm like, "Hey, sorry. You know, I just I I've been trying to look for a book. I seen that you look really sharp. Um, I wanted to see what you do for a living." And then he was just like he just kind of stared at me and he's like, "Why?" I'm like, "Well, well, because I mean, you look sharp. I'm just curious." And he's like, "Why do you want to know?" He's like, "Hey, man. Next time you want to come up to me, how about you, you're a little bit less discreet about it. Like, just come up to me, talk to me." He's like, "What do you what do you want?" And I'm like, "Well, I just" and I just kind of start throwing up all over him. Like, it's just like telling him words like I started an office, we we do insurance, we do business, we we're entrepreneurs, and all these things. And the guy's just looking at me, he's like, "Man, like I I feel bad for you." like, you know, look for something you really want to do. And he's like, "Go back to school." And he tells me, I was kind of giving me advice that I should have probably took. But yeah, he just made me feel like what I was doing was just, you know, deceiving and and and just it made me feel like I was like rethinking everything. Am I really doing what I'm what I'm what I think I am or is this just all, you know, facade?

And so you just made me you just made me feel like I was like you just made me feel dumb, right? Like made me feel dumb about my approach and everything. So, but yeah, went on out there and just, you know, shook it off and attempted 19 more of the nos, you know.

>> Yeah. Honestly, you know what? I respect that guy and people like him because he was he was actually doing you a favor in hindsight. And he his reaction to it is what I would perceive as a normal reaction. Like, imagine the the optics of this, right? You're a fresh-faced 18-year-old kid. Like, even right now, you're 29. You look young. So, I can only imagine what you look like when you were 18 years old, right? So, you're 18 years old wearing this suit, which I don't know if you had a a personally tailored suit or if it was off the rack, but you're probably, you know, the suit is probably not, you know, fitting the way it would for an actual, you know, proper successful businessman. You've made zero dollars in the company at this point and you're going around with this script that they've given you to like sort of lie. I mean, lie and be like, "Oh, yeah. I'm doing this. I'm doing that." And there's like this bait and switch element going on where you're going up to people, asking them what they do, almost making them feel like you're looking up to them or that you're looking to them for some sort of opportunity when in reality it's just a lure to get them in conversation so you can tell them about your supposed opportunity. I mean,

>> think about how inauthentic this whole thing is. A stranger comes up to you and says, "Hey, you look really sharp." And they might not even look really sharp, right? They might be wearing normal dusty shoes and you're coming up. Oh, I love whatever it is about you that doesn't look sharp. Oh, you look sharp. I don't know. For me personally, maybe I'm just skeptical. But I would I would feel like, you know, what do you want? Why are you talking to me? There must be some ulterior motive here because people just don't normally do that. you know, especially I mean I guess this was a basically a decade ago, more than a decade ago, but as time has gone on, I feel like people are less keen to answer phone calls or FaceTimes, especially unsolicited ones. People would prefer to like, you know, not meet the Door Dash driver at the door. They want to wait for him to leave so that they can open the door and bring the food in. So it's like this strategy of like getting face to face with people I just imagine is like

>> just a nightmare for most people like an absolute like

>> leave me alone you know leave me alone. So um but I mean hey that's what they told you. They had already primed you for that by saying go and get 20 nos. So they made you feel like it's normal but it's not normal. If 20 people are telling you to [ __ ] off leave them alone

>> right? you know, so I mean, obviously we can look at this stuff in hindsight and understand, but again, for a 18-year-old who doesn't know anything about what real business is, what, you know, multi-level marketing is, what what a pyramid scheme is, you um Yeah, you just don't know any better at 18,

>> right? I was just doing what I was told. And um I've seen that the people that were there that were successful told me that they did the exact same thing. So, I'm thinking, well, I mean, if if it worked for them, it has to work uh for me as well, right? So, I was just doing what they were telling me to do. And u well, I was I was already at two recruits. I had a little bit of points. They would call them points um from the policy that the the girl's mom got. And so, after that, I I really didn't do much in in the in the business. I I um I wasn't really recruiting. Everybody that I that I was talking to about, you know, PHP, they were just telling me like, "Oh, okay. It sounds good, but not interested." And so, right there, within a few weeks, two, three weeks that I was in, it started,

>> I had no more market. I had no more people. Yep.

>> Um the people that I I took um the um other people there at the company that PHP that were doing the the field trainings where they were going to to sell the insurance didn't sell anything because my market was so bad and nobody wanted to buy. So that was it. I was completely left in the shadow where what do I do now, right? How do I go get more people? And so um at the same time though, Marco, I was trying to get my license so that I could sell insurance and I could get paid for it under my personal, you know, code number, right? So um I um I was trying to um get my life insurance uh license. And so um and that wasn't working at the time. I was working at Home Depot to try to have some type of income. And so while I was working, I was also studying. I was going home studying and I failed my test three times uh back to back to back. And at the time it would cost, you know, I think it was like $80, $100 to take the test. Money that I didn't have and I was paying every single time and and just getting let down. I I go take the test, I would fail it. Go take the test, fail it. And then three times. But I remember this. Alejandro brought me back into the office and he said, "Look, man. I told you before, you remind me of me. You you and this I kid you not word for word. He's like you have the heart of a lion. He's like you are resilient Emanuel. Go out there and don't give up. Just go out there and prove everybody wrong. Don't give up. He's like you have the heart of a lion. And and I'm telling you these little things when you're, you know, super young and naive. I mean even if you're not young and naive, even if you're just in a bad spot in your life, right? You've been, you know, dealt with rejection. You've dealt with so many things in life that life has thrown on you, but yet you have a person that sits there and tells you, "Hey, I believe in you.

>> You you you are you you could be this, right? I I could see potential in you that anybody right there will take it and be like, okay, I'mma run with this." And

>> yeah, for sure. Even the whole you remind me of me when I was younger. It's like I can just picture Patrick Bed David saying that to him in a previous scenario, you know, and now he's again, it's just everything about this is so inauthentic. It's like in my opinion anyways, like they're just saying what they're told to say, you know, and it's almost like this good cop, bad cop thing, like what the [ __ ] am I supposed to believe? The first guy, whatever his name, Hector, whatever his name was, he's in Yeah, he's in there telling telling somebody, "Oh, this guy's only going to make it to Field Associate." And then you have Alejandro being like, "You have the heart of a lion. You could go far. You remind me of me." It's like whi which is it? You know, like there's no there's no uniformity. I sort of as a as a side note here, I just want to say I think it's really deplorable how and every MLM in my experience does this, but on PHP's website right now in 2026, if you go to their website on the homepage, phpag agency.com, you scroll down a little bit. Rob, scroll down a little bit. Um, you'll see that they have a breakdown of their diversity stats. And it says 43% of the company is Hispanic or Latino, 34% black African-American. So already we're at 77%, 12% other, 11% white. The gender breakdown, 53% women, 47% men, 92% of people had no prior industry experience, 7% were military veterans, average age 35 years old. So to me, this paints a picture of what they're doing. And even in Patrick's, I think it's his DJ Vlad interview, he talks about going and getting specifically young Latino women, young Hispanic women to sell this stuff. And it's just not only is it ironic considering uh Patrick's views on like immigration and uh you know, diversity on his podcast where he's like this very conservative sort of right-wing guy, which is completely contradicted by how he seems to run his company or who he targets for his company. But I don't know, I just have this picture in my mind of like, you know, uh, Spanishspeaking single mom, you know, average age, 35 years old, no prior industry experience, maybe it's military wives, and it's it's just praying on a community in my opinion that has been known for strong family ties, working hard, supporting each other, and using that for a nefarious uh purpose. And you know, you look at the income disclosure from PHP, we know most people are losing money once you factor in their even just their $150 or I don't know how much it is today. I think maybe $200. Don't quote me on that.

>> Yeah, 200 now. Okay. So, you know, once you factor in just that cost, never mind the opportunity cost of your time, never mind whatever other monthly fees there might be, never mind whatever other training there is, never mind gas getting to and from the office if you're going in person. And now with this breakdown of the demographics, we know what people are losing money. And I just think uh you know all these names that you've said, you're you're Emanuel, you're Emanuel Rosales, you're talking about Alejandro Aguilar, you're talking about Erica Del, was it Del Toro?

>> Del Toro.

>> Yeah. I mean, this is just a horrible like Latino on Latino grievance that's that's taking place here. And so I I don't know. And you know, it it just I'm sorry to rant about this, but it strikes me because, you know, my best friend who joined World Financial Group, he was Mexican. And it reminds me of of that situation. You know, his family was a hardworking family. His dad didn't speak very good English. You know, he was doing drywall. He was doing manual labor and they got my friend with the exact same sort of appeals of like, you know, what do you want to be doing and don't you want to have a better life? And I don't know, it's just no matter how much time passes, you know, that was 11 years ago in my story and and yours as well is 11 years ago. I'm I'm also 29. 11 years ago, and it still

>> infuriates me as much today as it did back then. And

>> um

>> I feel like now, sorry to don't mean to cut you off. One thing I was going to add before I forget is

>> like that was 11 years ago, right? No social social media. We had, you know, Facebook, we had YouTube, right? But there was no Instagram reels. There was no Tik Tok as how it is today, right? So now these guys that are in the business are making Tik Toks. They're making Instagram reels about their lifestyle now, right? And so they could fake it even more beyond that. Make it seem this great big, you know, opportunity. And and now I feel like because of social media and how big it is now, they actually have the opportunity to actually get to more people because now a lot of people see something on social media and they automatically believe that it's the truth, right? So we didn't have that, right? We had to grind it out and just go up to people face to face. But now social media, I mean, everybody sees it nowadays. You go on social media and almost everybody's a a millionaire according to social media. And so now you are more interested of getting more information, right? So it's it's more it it's never going to stop, right? It's going to just get bigger and bigger and bigger unless people open their eyes and realize the signs. The science will be there of what it is. and and how to avoid it, right? And so just wanted to add that before for

>> Yeah. No, no, thank you for that. And that's absolutely true. That's why it's so important that we're doing things like this, you know, people like you sharing your story so that when people on social media are doing research about the company, maybe they've just joined or they're being prospected to join. They can find videos like this, they can find my debate with Alejandro, hear both sides, see content from both sides, and make a more informed decision. And that's why it's so important to do this. And it's also important for people who um see this and then see that type of content on social media to report it because even here I'm trying to I'm trying to pull up the policy right now on Tik Tok. I know for a fact Tik Tok does not allow uh specifically multi-level marketing to be to be advertised on the platform. This is what's not allowed. You know, there's a list of things and on that list is multi-level marketing, multi-level marketing schemes, pyramid schemes. So, oh, also get-rich quick schemes. So, yeah, you know, it's it's kind of telling that on Tik Tok's, you know, Tik Tok wants the most people to use the platform. They want as much content on the platform as possible. You would think they try to be as lax with their policies as possible to get the most people on the app. and MLM is not illegal. So why do they why do they not allow it on the platform? I think there's sort of there's sort of this element of them saying the quiet part out loud. It's like we know but we're not allowed to say that these are scams that MLM means scam. So okay at this time after you first signed up is this where you had the it was like a concurrent four years. Is that right?

>> Correct. Yes.

>> Okay. Got it. So I want to ask about what the culture was like while you were there. How did they motivate people to keep going? Was there any sort of like punishment, dare I say, if you didn't hit certain quotas, how did they motivate each other? What was the, you know, either support or manipulation like? I just want to know from your uh experience what what that was like.

>> Yeah. When I was there, like I mentioned, there was a lot of people that were a little bit older than me at the time. No, no one really like 18, 19 or even, you know, early 20s um for the most part. So after that I we started recruiting and shifting towards like a younger market and so I remember that you know we were there at the office there was like young young kids getting started and I think one of the things that we would do is that we would always talk about that when you're in the office it's when like even if you have no activity you have nobody to call you have no one that you're you're trying to sell a policy to but just being at the office it was the most important thing because when you're at the office, you could train on products, you could train on prospecting, you could role play with each other to see if um what you could improve on. So Alejandro and everybody would always tell us being there at the office was crucial. Even if you had no activity, being there, we were going to get some type of activity going for you, right? So um that was the thing. So yes, I I was I I had quit my job at at um at Home Depot because I I passed my my state exam. I pass it with the 60.8%. In California, you only need 60% to get your life insurance. Uh to get your life uh life and health license, um which is very low, honestly. So, I passed with 60.8. I quit my job right away as soon as I passed and I went full-time into the business. But during this time, we were transitioning from, you know, going with the office that we were at. I guess the lease was up. We're looking for a new office because they they were calling that we're getting bigger. I think just the lease was up and we're trying to find something that was affordable. But we were transitioning and so I remember that during that time everybody that was there, we were all just meeting up at somebody's house, making calls. We're we got really good at DMing on Instagram. I remember that I would get a picture of uh one time actually um PHP gave Alejandro a Lamborghini for the day um because he had done pretty good one month. So they rented a Lamborghini for the day for him and I remember that he we were all calling each other like, "Hey, Alejandro has a Lambo. Alejandro has a Lambo. Let's let's go to the office." So we got to the office and sure enough we see this Lamborghini Gallardo this maybe 2005, you know, it was really at the time to us it was really cool. But we were we were all taking pictures in it and that's what we did. Marco, we got really good at marketing. So, we got we took a picture of the wheel of ourselves driving the car. And honestly, this was my my my tactic. I would

>> send the picture to somebody on Instagram DM and be like, "Hey, how would you like to one day own a Lamborghini?"

>> Oh my god. And you don't even own a Lamborghini?

>> I don't. I don't. I I took a picture of it. I I sat in it for maybe 10 minutes and took all kinds of pictures and I was sending it to people. How would you like to have a Lamborghini one day? these are the things my company does for me when we do good, right? They give us things like this. And so we were just DMing people all day long. I remember that we built a good relationship with everybody that was at the office. These guys now became more friends to me than my actual friends. They became more family than my actual family because I would spend all day at the office. And so we were just DMing people all day long, you know, going to the stores to prospect. I remember that there was this certain element that if you didn't go to the store and prospect people like you you were doing yourself an injustice. So I remember that it was such an uncomfortable feeling going to the store because I knew in the back of my mind I have to prospect this person. If not I'm going to go back to the office and they're going to ask me did you prospect where did you go? Oh I went to Fastrip. Did you prospect the cashier? No. Why not? Like are you scared? Are you taking this business serious? Right. So, there was this fear element behind it as well that if if you weren't doing what you're supposed to, you were already failing.

>> And so, but like but back to what I was saying, like the culture started shifting because we went from a young from an office that was, you know, there was like people that had families and kids to now a bunch of young people. And so these young guys, myself included, were recruiting other young people that were naive, that were that were also not, you know, anywhere near, you know, having a career. So this was their like career and their stepping stone to get into a career. And so we started recruiting like that.

>> And so we um I was one of the main ones there, Marco. So what I would do is we would bring people into the office and I would go up there and I would call somebody like, "Hey, you come up here. me and you were going to role play on how to prospect each other. And we would do that for hours, Marco. Hours upon hours of just role playing back and forth. I remember that uh to get good at phone calls, they would call me the best at making phone calls because we would roleplay that all day. So, we would get some someone would get there like, "All right, we're going to make 20 calls. I'm going to go stand outside. You stay in here." And I would call them, "Hey, my name is Emanuel Rosales. Um, I got your number

"by Marco." You know Marco, right? Yeah. Hey, how do you guys know each other? Oh, he's my buddy from high school. No way. That's That's awesome. Hey, guess what? Marco told me I don't know if this is true or not, right? But Marco told me that you're sharp, that you're ambitious, right? Hey, you like making money, right? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Well, guess what? I guess Marco wasn't lying to me.

Um, but hey, check it out, man. Um, like I said, my name is Emanuel. I'm one of the directors here at the office. Uh, we just opened a brand new office and and we're looking for people just as ambitious um as you claim to be, right? So, um, how about we do this? How about I invite you down to my office. We're going to have a meeting on that Tuesday. It's going to be an event that's going to be, you know, we're going to have snacks here. We're going to have, you know, uh, treats for you guys. Uh, and we're going to tell you guys a little bit more about what we do and how you can get into this business. How's that sound? Sounds great. Okay, perfect. Let me send you the address and and I I'll I'll go back and let Marco know that that you're going to be a guest for him. All right. All right. Perfect.

And that's what we would do all day long. Just role play that. And so, Marco, we started going from recruiting, you know, 10 people a month. At the time, I mean, during this whole uh this period that I'm telling you that we're prospecting and role playing with each other with phone calls and and prospecting, maybe it was around eight months of that. During that time, I had no success. I wasn't, you know, hitting any promotions. I wasn't even making any money. I didn't make money until my first like year after a year. So, uh, during this time, I was just, you know, my parents were giving me money here and there. They were paying for my gas. They were, um, my mom, I remember, they would she give me like 20 bucks for the week and be like, "Hey, like I can't fund you and afford to fund you. You got to make money." So, what I would do is I would, um, I picked up another part-time job. Uh, I went back to Home Depot. And so, uh, that was like while I was there, I was lying to people that I was at I had a job. So, when they would ask me like, "Where were you at?" I'm like, "Oh, I had this going on." I had to just make up all these excuses on why I couldn't tell them that I was working a job. I remember being at Home Depot embarrassed of what I was doing that if somebody that was young walked through the doors, maybe even if I didn't know them, if they were young, I would try to avoid them. I would go to the back. I would go and be like, "Hey, you know what? I need to go get something from the break room." Just to avoid them so they didn't see me and having a job. And um I remember that I was changing my schedule at work so that I could be there on Tuesday and Saturday for those B the business opportunity meetings that they would call them boom. Um I had to change my schedule so that I had to be there. And so when people would ask me if I had a job I was like no but that was my income that supplemented me to get by.

And after a year, we went from recruiting, you know, 20 people a month as a collective to now recruiting 40, 50 people. And um and I remember that we got this from Patrick. Patrick was always calling out people. If you were in a meeting and somebody's phone would go off, they'd be like, "Code, code, code. This guy didn't turn off his phone." And they would literally shame you in front of everybody. How are you gonna take this business serious? You can't even put your phone on silent, right? Oh my god. Like you like how how bad do you want it, right? Like you you can't even do the simple thing of putting your phone on on on vibrate, right? So, um, we we we the young guys started picking up on that, right? So we would we would call each other out, right? If somebody was supposed to be there, so the the B the BM will start I want to say like 7 o'clock, but we would have pregame at 6:30. Somebody that was doing good for the week would get chosen to give a speech, to give a story about how they got success that week to motivate the the the people, the agents that were already there, not the guests, the just the agents. And so they would get chosen to speak um 30 minutes before the BOM actually started. And I remember that um if if you didn't get there at 6:30, they would close the doors. So, as soon as it hit 6:30, they were literally right there with their phone timing it. Like, as soon as it hit 6:30, boom, lock the doors. Anybody that was out there, like, you couldn't go go in. And so, they would start the pregame, right? As soon as the pregame would end, it was like 15 minutes of it. So, we had enough time for the guests to show up for the BOM. Soon as the B the pregame would end, we'd open the door and everybody, Marco, that was out there that didn't make it to 6:30, oh, they were getting lit up. Why weren't you here? How were the Oh, you you uh you got stuck in traffic. That's your fault, right? They were like shaming you for being a minute late.

And so now these guys, what you what we would say is like there's two types of people in this world. This is what we got trained to to believe. There's two types of people in this world. D there's people that are ducks and people that are eagles. Ducks sit in a pond. They wait for people to go feed them. They wait for the crumbs. And and every day, all day, they just sit around the pond doing nothing, right? They wait for people to feed them. But then you have an eagle. Eagle doesn't wait for them to get fed. They go out and hunt. They're hunters, right? They're they're they're relentless. They're they're they they don't have to wait for somebody. And so they would always tell people, "Oh, you're you're a freaking duck. You're a duck." And it's crazy to me that how much of a psychological um impact we would make on people because mostly every everybody their market wasn't making any money. They were showing up. They would dress up. Girls would put their makeup. Guys would put their suits and ties. Show up making zero dollars. And I know I knew because a lot of them were under my team making zero dollars. I myself was making no money. So I knew how much they were actually making. Yet they would show up and we would belittle them if they showed up late and all these things. Yet they would still show up the next the next week. Like how how does that happen? It it's such an insane behavior because not only is it insane by itself, but you're not even getting paid for this [ __ ] Like this is unpaid time. You're going to the office. You spent your own opportunity cost at 6 at dinner time essentially, right? So presumably people are missing out on dinner with their families. They're not getting paid. This might be after hours from their normal job already. Like you said, you had a job like a like an actual jo, god forbid, a horrible horrible job. So, you're going after work hours to do extra work and then getting shamed if you don't make it there on time. Like, imagine that. Imagine you got off uh your shift at Home Depot or wherever you were working and you're trying to rush to make it to this office. More time, gas money, etc. And and god forbid there's traffic and you're a minute late or 10 seconds late and they lock you outside and then shame you. It's like, by the way, I'm not even getting [ __ ] paid for this, >> right? >> You know, and then also I wanted to ask like code. You said they say code like that's their internal like safety word. Does that mean like they broke the code or what does code mean? >> Yeah. Like like code red, you know, like oh my god your phone would go off. That was a code, right? You would code code and everybody would be like turn off your freaking phone, you dumbass. You know, all these things like >> Yeah. Turn off your phone. I'm listening to the same mindless motivational babble about talking to strangers at Walmart that we've heard for a thousand [ __ ] times now. >> Exactly. And you know what's crazy that our our like you know bread and butter and everything that we would would do it was based off Wolf Wall Street movies that we would watch. They they would tell us watch Wolf of Wall Street, watch the Boiler Room, watch all these movies that are going to motivate you, right? So we started kind of embodying this this persona of what we were, you know, watching, what we were hearing, right? So, like I remember that we would like just talk crap to each other all the time. And it was this thing that's like I care about you and that's why I push you because I care about you. I care you succeeding. Like and that's the thing too. We would meet each other's like parents and and and close family and friends and tell them I care for you to retire your mom and that's why I I talk to you like this because I care about you. Like >> Yeah. Yeah. >> If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't even bother. Right. So then now you're thinking like man like it is this is what I I'm supposed to be hearing because this person obviously cares about me and there's nobody in their life Marco that will actually push them in that sense right and so now they they it's like that Stockholm syndrome right like you feel like these people care about me because they talk crap to me like >> it's like when when some parents like beat their kids and like I'm doing this cuz I love you know also I'm so glad that you brought up the Wolf of Wall Street thing cuz I was thinking about that as you were going through the scenario the re the reenactment of you calling somebody and I was going to say this is just like Wolf of Wall Street [ __ ] like hey this is Jordan Belelfur from Stratton Oakmont I have an amazing opportunity I'm the director here it's like you're and mind you in that movie he's actually like he is actually making money doing what he's doing this is even crazier than that fictionalized you know uh exaggerated movie because you're not even making any money, >> right? You're actually losing money. >> You're losing money after you factor in all the time you're putting in, the cost to get your license, the cost to pay the fee to join PHP, uh the cost of any chargebacks, like this is something a lot of people don't understand, but in the insurance world, if somebody buys like an insurance policy, if they cancel it before the term renews, you have to pay back the advanced commission that you got. Right. >> Right. >> Think about that, too. You might make 10 sales, but what if somebody cancels their policy before it renews? Now you're going to have to, you know, really you only made nine sales, but you probably already spent that money. So, it's like, it's just such [ __ ] no matter how you slice it. And the fact that there are people so committed to it that they're going like code, you know, going back to the beginning of your story where you're sitting there playing FIFA and your cousin says, "Oh, imagine if you were this good at something that actually made you money." hearing about the details of it actually makes me wish that you were just sitting playing FIFA instead because at least sitting playing FIFA, you weren't losing money. >> Right. Exactly. And and that's the thing too that like I I um I feel like for a lot of people that are even get into like an MLM or or or something like that along the lines of that, which most of them are, but if they get into something like that, I feel like a lot of things also play that people don't even realize that are factoring into their decision on why they're staying, right? Um and that's one of the things that we we would get really good at. We were we were told you are not just the this person's upline. You are their psychologist. You are their mentor. You are their their rock. You are going to be all these things. And I remember vividly we would tell people, look, you get started with us. You're not just getting started in this this opportunity, this office. The money is going to come. You're going to make ridiculous amounts of money. But one thing that you're going to get out of all of this as well is a family. We we if you get a flat tire, Marco, at two in the morning, guess what? We're going to be there before your your your own family. And and and we would actually, you know, it was crazy that we we would start convincing ourselves that I would care about these people without realizing the harm I was actually doing to them. I remember that um for a year I didn't do anything. I was 19 at the time. I didn't do any I wasn't doing anything in the in the business. I was making no money. And one thing that started shifting is that one the day that my business changed forever in PHP was I went to J C Penney. I went with like one of my really good buddies that I had met through PHP. At the time this guy wasn't really doing much and so um you know me and him went to the mall and I I was at J C Penney and we were just walking around not not looking for anything. We're not going to buy anything. we got no money to buy anything. But we're just walking around to prospect and um I was feeling defeated like I do this all the time and it never really works. But I go up to this guy and he he's he works at J. Penney in the suit department. He's the one that tailors it for you. And this young kid um he had this amazing voice and I remember I was like like it was natural to me to ask him like, "Man, you have a really cool voice. Have you ever thought about doing like radio or or do you sing?" And he was like, "No." I'm like, "Hey, man. Well, guess what? um have you ever thought about, you know, going into business for yourself? He's like, "Yeah." I'm like, "How come you never done uh you know, how come you've never taken the steps to start?" He's like, "Well, I just don't know how." I'm like, "Hey, well, guess what? Le let's get in contact. I just opened up a new office." The office was like three years old at this point. Yeah. I was like, you know, I was like, "I just opened up a new office. We're looking for people. Uh, how about I take your number?" He's like, "Yeah, that's fine." I take it back to my cousin. My cousin calls him that same night. The guy comes in the next day. he gets recruited and then I remember that I um that um in in my mind like I was telling you I was convinced that I was doing these people a a good thing, right? Like a a good service because I was going to give them much more than just an opportunity. I was going to be there for them, right? Like in a sense it was like I was their their like leader, right? And so I remember this guy got started. I was motivating him like pouring into him. We would call it an emotional bank account. You deposit into this emotional bank account with words of affirmation with encouragement with with with positivity with optimism and this was this was their emotional bank account. You know why we call emotional bank account? Because we could withdraw from it in the future. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, >> because this guy now like I would I remember that like I would force myself to to at the beginning to to be this person and it it would come off to me like pretty fake, right? Because it was ingenuine. But after a while, like of so many years uh so many months of doing this, I convinced myself that I was this this person for them. And I remember that I would sit there and with this guy Carlos, his name was Carlos that recruited J. C. Penney. I remember that I would sit there and just listen to him tell me about his his life and his his struggles and everything. And I would just be listening depositing into this emotional bank account. He had no market, but he brought me this guy that also had no market. Super like nerdy looking kid. And then through him, I ended up recruiting 15 people because we would always say it's not who they are, it's who they know. And so through through that guy, I recruited another guy that brought me like 15 people. And so it was crazy that it was just like squeezing these guys out for for the market. >> Yeah. And not and I mean the emotional bank account thing is so slimy as well because not only is it something like like you said you can withdraw from it you're conflating something that should be an authentic relationship you know a friendship with something that's inherently transactional a bank account you use it to pay bills and and transact and also it's your possession right you own that money you don't own somebody or what's going on inside of somebody because of your emotional investment. It's just completely inauthentic. Same thing with the whole family thing. I think it's a huge red flag whenever any kind of business, never mind an MLM scheme, says to people that we're a family. We're not a [ __ ] family. I'm here because I need money. You're here. You have me here because you're paying me money and because I'm generating money for the business. We're not a family. I'm clocking in. I'm doing my hours, doing my duties. I'm going home. That's it. Those hard lines, those boundaries are so important. I know the MLM people try to [ __ ] on the 9to-5, but did you ever consider that the 9 to5 like works, >> you know? These people are working committing time to this 24/7, you know, to their own peril in most cases. Just look at the income disclosure for PHP, like I said. And family is probably the most universally used excuse for compromising your own boundaries. If there's a behavior that one of your relatives is doing that is harmful to you or if there's a relative that you know uh is harmful to you or that you don't like, people will always try to say, "Oh, but they're your family." It's just this blanket nothing excuse that people use. And what they're really trying to do when they say we're a family, is get you to compromise your own boundaries. Like even the thing about if you get a flat tire, we're going to be there first. It's like I'm sorry, that's too much. That I would expect from my friends. And if you happen to work at the same place I work, okay, great. But somebody like putting that out there inside of the office and saying that this is what we do is just I don't know. In my opinion, they're just fostering this sort of like cult hive mind mentality where yes, people will help each other, but people will also eat each other. You know, the same guy the same guy helping me change my tire when it goes out is the same guy who's saying code when my phone goes off and locking the door when I'm 10 seconds late. Like this is completely [ __ ] upside down. It's completely insane. >> I agree. And and that's one of the things that like when when you said that right now, it's like this guy maybe late last week he was yelling at me code because I forgot to turn off my phone and they made a a genuine human mistake of turning it off and now I got shamed in front of everybody. Right. But then the next day he's telling me I'm going to be there for you. Right. And one of the other things that is really important too is that um Patrick would make us read um we had this book club. every every month we would have to read a new book and it was a self-development book. Um I read countless amount of books and that's one thing I like I did get from from PH was that like I did read a lot of books but reading a lot of books also helped me kind of open my mind out to different things and I realized we read these books we have these meetings constantly because we're trying to get people to continue drinking the Kool-Aid right like >> Yes. I remember that one of the marketing directors uh from another office, he told me, he said, "Look at every single recruit." Like they have a number on their forehead and that number is going down every single day unless something good happens to them. Whether that's recruiting, selling a policy, or just you pouring into them, that number dwindles down every single day. And so what your job is to do is to make that number go up every day so that you could keep them alive. you keep them alive so long in this business that they eventually do something for you rather whether it's they sell a policy that counts for you, right? And so now as a collective, this guy that maybe didn't sell anything for two months now sells one the third month and then you happen to have this guy that's on his seventh month that hasn't sold anything for six month and on his seventh one makes that sale. So now as a collective you have now 10,000 points right under your base shop because you kept pouring into these guys. And so reading these books of the month, we would read a lot of psych uh psychology books. We would read a lot of um of books that would make us um and and I remember that we would read these books and we were supposed to every week talk about what we were learning in the book. And I remember that they would actually call you out during these trainings. They would be like, "Hey, Mar," like just you're singled you out. Hey, Marco, you reading the book of the month? Yes, I am. Okay. What what was uh chapter one mostly about? And you would just sit there and be like, "Uh, you know, and if you you weren't reading the book, they would just call you out, right? They would shame you code." Like, "This guy's not reading his book." And all these things, right? Then now you were like, >> "Dang." And so you would go home, you know, if you were the type of person that would go like go home and be like, "Okay, now I'm going to read this book." Now you come back. And so now the the reason why the book of the month was so important is because we would learn a lot of psychology. So now, guess what we would do, Marco? We would we would when we would had these guys in the office, this is what I would do, okay? And I started getting really good at recruiting. I went from not recruiting anybody. I started going from recruiting 10 people a month to 20 to 30 to 40 to 50. I my biggest month I recruited 58 people and that was I did that one month. I did that the second month and I did that third month. So you tell me I recruited over it was I over I think it was like 160 something recruits within three months and I got so good at it. You know why? Because I was using these tactics so much. I would literally go up to people Marco. They were sitting down the office. I'd go up to them and guess what I would do? I would go up there and like a guy like shake like touch them from like the shoulders like you know rattle them up like hey man what's up man? Hey how's the family? Oh, they're good. Hey, man. Guess what? I I I know today you're going to get a recruit. Yeah. I I mean, I I don't have nobody to call, man. You know, I believe in you, man. And I'm like, "Hey, you know what?" And I'll go over there and I'll tell the next guy, "Bro, this guy's going to get a recruit, right?" "Yeah." "Do you think he's going to get a recruit?" "Yeah." "All right, man. How you going to make it happen?" "Uh, you know what? I'm going to go prospect." "All right. Hey, how about all of you, five people that are here, go all prospect each uhh together and go out there and get 10 numbers and bring them back?" And like, "All right, cool." And I'll be like, "Hey man, before they would leave, hey man, I believe in you." You know, dap them up, give him a handshake, give him a hug. Hey, go out there and get it, man. And so now this person goes out there feeling like just this confidence, right? Because I poured into him this confidence that I made him feel like he could do anything. And so that was one thing. Now, I'll go on the group me that we had and I would go out there, hey guys, guess what? Marco is going out there right now to go prospect with and I would tag all of them and they're going to go out there and gonna go they're gonna get 10 numbers. Do you guys think they're going to make it like make it happen and they would be like that the group me would be fired up. the group me we were we had one policy no negativity only positivity right so I would put on the group me it was for two things accountability and two for motivation from everybody else all their peers and so now this guy now now you Marco are going out there, you're at let's say you're at a Panera Bread and then now you're seeing the group me everybody tagging you with fire emojis with with motivational uh quotes all these things and now you feel bulletproof right you feel invincible You go up to that cashier and you look him right in the eyes and you tell him, "I got 15 people rooting for me right now. I'm going to get your number." And so guess what? He would because of the because of the psychological impact on him, you know. And so it would work. It would work so much. I remember that I would have people like in the office 20 people in the like there was uh like we would just pull up like, you know, like chairs like there's foldable chairs. There was not even no desk or anything. foldable chairs and everybody was right there just making phone calls all day long DMing people on Instagram. I remember there was this guy that came up to me he's like, "Hey man, um what do I say to this guy? I'm trying to prospect him, but I I don't know how to ask for his number." I look at the DMs, Marco, and this guy's telling him he replied to his his he he screenshotted his car and DM'd to him. He's like, "Hey, bro. I just want to tell you your freaking rims are cool." The guy was like, "Oh, thanks, man. I did it myself." He's like, "That's cool. Hey, um I'm I'm looking for someone that's um that's interested in doing business. What do you think? And then like they would bring me their phone and be like, "How do I how do I close them?" Right? How do I actually get the number? And I'll take over, DM them back. Boom. Now you got a number. And it's like, "Guys, this guy right here just got a number. This guy, let's say his name is George. George just got a number right now." And everyone's like clapping, right? Hyping him up. And and it was this psychological thing that we would do, right, >> that would work so well. And and I'm and I'm telling you, it started working because I went from having no market to being this shy kid, 18-year-old kid. I mean, at the time, I was still 18. I barely turned 18 during that time. So, um I was getting close to turning 19, but now I wasn't just this 18-y old kid. I was this I was Emanuel Rosales now that was recognized throughout the whole company doing 50 recruits a month. And guess what? We had these shirts. If you recruited 10 people in one month, you would get this um um this red shirt and it was a nice tailored red shirt with a little logo right here that was like this gold crescent logo that said PHP had some lions on there. It was just nice, right? So, if somebody walked around the office wearing that shirt, like you would look at him a little bit different, like you would treat them a little bit different because it's like this is succeeding, right? And then if you got 25 recruits or above in a month, you would get this nice slick black shirt with the same little logo, but now that says you I done 25 in a month. Don't talk to me like this, you know, talk to me a little bit different. I do 25 a month. And so, and then we and then the reason why it was black, it's all psychology. This this MLM thing is always all psychology. Yes. The reason why it was black is because we were told that business people don't wear black shirts because wearing black is unprofessional. You wear white because that shows power. You look at anybody in politics, Donald Trump, you look at you look at successful CEOs, they wear a white shirt, red tie because that's power. And so wearing a black shirt meant that you were casual. And so the reason why the 25 shirt was black is because now I could be a little bit casual because now I'm succeeding. I'm doing good in my business, >> right? And and dude, Patrick wears a black shirt all the time. I I went to Erica Del Toro's uh Instagram earlier when you were talking about it. I pulled it up. She has several pictures with Patrick where he's wearing a black shirt or he's at PHP events on stage wearing a black shirt. >> And you know why he he could get away with it? >> Be successful. He now made it. If you were not at Patrick's level, you couldn't wear a black shirt, right? And so those were the things that we would all of us were like like on quue like all of us were on the same page and we were told that it was called being aligned to your upline. If your upline said something, you were supposed to defend your upline no matter what. Right? And so, um, and and that's what everything in psychology I was telling you about, like the shirts, the colors, the the the the motivational speeches was all psychology, right? And so, >> yes. >> Every time we would have um a boom, that's when you would wear those shirts, right? Right. And so, you would sit in the front row. If you were doing good in your business, you would sit in the front row and everybody would call you up. These guys are the ones doing good for this week. Everybody give them a round of applause. And so you would get paid by recognition. And you know what's crazy? For a lot of people, >> recognition is worth more than money. >> Why do people stay in these calls? >> It's because they're they're getting, you know, praise. And so that to them is more important than money. It's just like it goes to it ties into everything like social media, right? These social media influencers, you know, I watch all these videos talking about how now they're bankrupt and how they're facing jail time for all these things, but it's like during that time they are getting just so much recognition that to them is more important than actual money. And that's why I was at the office. >> I think it's dopamine too, right? Like literally dopamine hacking, keeping people so hyped up, having this like group, this mob mentality of everybody also supporting you. There's like this peer pressure element to it as well. Interrupting this discussion with Emanuel real quick to tell you about my YouTube memberships. If you want to support me on a monthly basis, this is the best way to do that. You know, we're constantly under attack over here from cease and desist letters, lawsuits, people trying to shut my channel down, etc., etc. If you have a question or comment that you want me to respond to, you can also leave a super chat in the comments. I know they call it super thanks, but I think that's such a cringe name for a feature. Uh but yeah, that's a good way to leave a a one-time donation to to support. And uh thank you. Back to our discussion with Emanuel. So, how much were you making at at the peak? Like what rank did you actually hit? >> I I became a marketing director. I actually um I broke the company record. I became a marketing director. I my birthday is in October. So, um I became a marketing director in November. And so they would market it like Emanuel hit marketing director as an 18-year-old because technically in October is when I that that month is when I hit the numbers. But I didn't didn't get my promotion that was official until November. So at this time I'm 19 I'm I'm freshly 19 years old. I just became marketing director. I broke the company record. This at this point it was it was like I was a celebrity. Everybody was talking about me. The whole company knew me. Um, at this time I had uh um qualified to to go to Spain um to watch the the Barcelona and Real Madrid classicalico that was paid for by the company because of of the numbers I was doing. And so at the time I was a celebrity essentially. I everywhere I went uh we had these these annual conventions. I would walk through the halls, Marco, and everybody would just be turning looking at me. They would they would just it was like if I was like a a movie star, right? And so, uh, that does something to you psychologically, right? You you feel better than other people. You feel like people owe you that that respect because of what you've done, right? And >> so, um, the highest rank I got was to market director. >> Um, the the most amount of money that I made in a month, I think I made close to about $15,000. Um, there was a week alone where I made like almost $6,000. And of course, it was marketed to everybody. He was talked about for months at the office. Um, I was even suggested and of course I was like, "Yeah, that's a great idea to take out the money, pull out $5,000 and and go show people that it was real to show people, look, >> yeah, >> physically money that I've made that's real and it would sell, right?" And so, um, at that point though, when I became marketing director, I became kind of like, um, I became kind of like a a marketer marketable product for the company, right? >> Because now all of these other because PHP is it was just not here in my town, right? It was it was in Texas, it was in in Florida, it was in all these other um states throughout the nation. And now they were like, "Hey, there's this 18-year-old kid, 19-year-old kid named Emanuel Rosales out of Bakersfield that just became a marketing director. Let's use his story for now our our our younger crowd here." And because it's working for Bakersfield, most of our recruits were 18, 19 years old. 22, you're considered old, right? So now now all of these other offices throughout the the nation uh that were under PHP were now realizing hey Baker's doing something with these 18-year-old kids like they're doing numbers right so let's shift our focus from 25year-old plus uh individual that has family and kids to now let's start recruiting 18 year old kids out of high school because it's working for them right so um yeah that was my that as far as peak goes yeah marketing director company record all of that >> and and how How much were you spending at this time? Because like was there an added pressure as you went up the ranks to also buy more stuff, policies, etc.? >> Yeah. Um the my spending definitely went up because now as a marketing director, we would have a semianual convention and then an annual convention. semiannual convention was my um it was everybody that was like in California and and and uh that that could make it out California and maybe other states like like Texas or something that was doable to fly over um for. So it was a semiannual convention um where it was be half of the company in one spot and then the other half of the company would be in another part of the the country doing their semianual convention and then annual convention was when everybody from PHP would fly out at one arena to do like a one big collective um convention and so my spending went up because every six months we had the annual convention and guess what I was told that if I wanted to grow my business and continue growing my business like the way I was I had to buy these tickets and these tickets were like $150, right? >> But if you get the bundle, it would be like $1,000 for 10 tickets, right? So, you save like uh 75 bucks per ticket or something and and the goal was you buy a lot of tickets, buy 20 tickets on you, you personally because now you commit to selling these tickets, right? So, now it would push you because now your money's on kind of like put your money where where your mouth is, right? like um now I I have 20 tickets that I have to sell to get my money my investment back. >> But not only was I going to get my money back, I was taking somebody that to these conventions that would be surrounded by this big collective of people that were in all aligned in the same, you know, movement that now this person was going to go and get recruited. So it was it was like don't look at it as if you're spending money now. look at it like your business is going to explode because you're going to take this person that's going to come back and blow up your business. And so, um, my spending went up because of that. My spending went up because I was going to get a hotel room. And guess what? A lot of the times my agents weren't making any money. And so, I had to buy a hotel room for them so that they we could put 10, 15 people. At the time, Marco, we were putting like 15 people per room, >> right? >> It the only way we were able to get people there was because they weren't making any money. So, let's say a hotel was $500. um for those two days, right? These guys couldn't even afford that. So, we would put 50 people in there. So, everybody paid like 20 bucks a pop, >> right? And and um Wow. And and and so my spending went up because I I was the one to initially pay for that up front. So, I was spent $2,000 on tickets, three thou like let's say another,000, $2,000 on hotel rooms. And at the same time, we would have to invest back into our business. they would call it by I would go get a new suit because now I got to keep up this persona that I'm successful because the the way I dress and then now I I had to get rid of my my beat up car and actually go and put myself in a in a financial position where I had to get a nice car because a nice car meant that you were doing good, right? So now my spending was going up because of my lifestyle. My like my my lifestyle didn't need to change but I had to change it to to put up this image and all these things, right? So yeah, of course, like yeah, let's say I made $15,000 that month. >> Well, I had to go and spend it so I could keep up the image and now there goes half my money, right? And at the same time, I'm at the office all day, so I can't go and cook for myself. I have to spend $30, $40 a day on food. My spending went up like crazy. >> It never It's never ending. It becomes all-encompassing. You're 100% right. And I'm so glad we talked about this because there are people who might watch this and think, "Oh, 15 grand in a month." But once you realize the cost of that 15 grand, you would realize that actually if I could have half my free time back but make half the money, I would much rather do that because at that point it becomes I mean you never had any free time before that. You were already committing to it before the money came in. But now the money's coming in but is it really coming in cuz it's coming it's going out as fast as it's coming in because of the added costs you mentioned. And people might think like even people from the company would probably say like oh well he wasn't forced to do that. It wasn't mandatory for him to do that. But if the entire culture of the company and your involvement with it up until this point has been this psychological mob mentality thing where everybody is doing stuff because of the pressure of other people in the environment, you know, code, locking the door, etc. Then if you get to a certain point where it's expected of you or if you're nudged to do things like buying event tickets for your team who's not making as much money, buying hotel rooms, etc. uh lifestyle inflation to keep selling the dream, you're going to do it. And so that's something that people don't understand is that this is a >> I'm speaking broadly here about MLM, not necessarily PHP. And this is just my opinion, but >> in my opinion, what we're talking about is a totalistic cult where every element of your life, it's not just your money. You know, a pyramid scheme is a financial financial scheme by which you're separated from your money. We're talking about something so much more totalistic here, so much more uh all-encompassing for one's life. It's your relationships, it's your time, it's your money, it's your your mind, you know, your soul, the way you look at people. You even mentioned earlier that I was going to comment about this too, like somebody told you look at everybody like there's a number on their forehead and the numbers going down if you don't keep them uh keep them motivated or whatever, >> right? literally looking at people like numbers like it's dehumanizing and then there's other elements that are dehumanizing as well like cramming a hotel room with 15 people like I don't know what uh the general you know safety policy is for a hotel but I'm pretty sure that it's if not if it if it's not completely illegal it's at least a violation of a hotel's policies I would imagine to over stuff a room beyond its capacity you know I would think that a a hotel room >> big turns going up there >> that's what I That's what I mean. So, it's like you're doing this behavior that's like I don't know. It's just there's no word for it, but insane. Everything you um look at is insane. So, I'm I'm I'm glad you talked about that because you were very uh very adequately able to describe just in a very practical terms how the spending increases commensurate with your your income to make it to the point that you could still be losing money. Like how much would you say you were taking home after this 15,000 when your costs are all going up now? Like how much were you actually putting back in your pocket or saving? >> Well, and it's another thing that these are the other little things that most people don't talk about is maybe at this point I had already owed money to get to that point, right? So some of this money I was paying back like in credit cards or or I was paying back my my parents like here they let me borrow 200 bucks this one time and now I got to pay this back now that I have money. So, a lot of this money too was like paying off things that you were already owing on to even get to that point. So, there that's

One little thing as well. Other things too was, um, you know, if I, if I really think about it, maybe I, I kept 5,000 out of that. But that 5,000 was, >> I wasn't keeping it, just keep it. I knew that those 5,000 was going to be like to keep me going for the next few months in case I had a bad month. >> And also, let's say 5,000 people would still think, "Oh, 5,000 take-home, that's not bad, you know, 5,000 in a month." But let's look at the hours. How much, how many hours would you estimate that you're putting in? Because you can't really quantify it, right? You might be doing something that's not at the office, but you're on your phone posting or talking to people or prospecting or answering DMs from your team or whatever. So, it's almost like, let's, let's do a conservative estimate and say you're putting in 8 hours per day for 30 days, or even just a normal, even >> Yeah. Even just a normal, even just a normal uh schedule. You know, if you worked a normal job full-time, that would be 40 hours a week, right? So, 40 * 4 weeks, 160 hours in a month. So, let's do 5,000, which is what you took home, divided by 160. So, $31.25 an hour. So, that's not bad. $31.25 per hour. But let, let's be real, you and I both know you were spending way more time.

>> I was, I was there. >> We had to be there by 8:00 a.m. And we would even have a competition. So, if you were not there at 8:00 a.m., you were getting called out. "How were them bed sheets? Oh, you slept in. Oh, wow. I wish I could sleep in. Man, that must be nice rolling out of bed and just like, you know, getting ready and coming over here." I was here at 8 a.m. And so we, at one point, we even had a competition where if you didn't get there at 8:00 a.m., you would pay like a hundred bucks. Like, you pull it, and we would put it in a pool, and at the end of the week, whoever was there more on time would get to keep that money.

>> So stupid. >> It was like this one thing where it's like, we would just push each other like so much. It was a, it was non-stop competition all the time. And yeah, so it sounds good, right? 31 something an hour for, for most people, it's like, "Yeah, that's good to to make that, right?" But no, I was there 8 a.m. and I would leave there maybe 11:00, sometimes midnight.

>> Oh my god. >> Think about it. I would get there 8 a.m. First thing I would do, I would check on policies. I would call my team, see how they were doing. I mean, I would, throughout the day, hopefully go run appointments where I could try to sell insurance or or or meet with people. We call them RI, recruiting interviews. So, we would uh that was my daily activity, either trying to go and sell an insurance policy or interview someone to recruit them. And then now what? Now, guess what? At 5:00, that's when a lot of my team is getting out of work. So, I can't just leave at 5:00 because they're going to go to the office at 6:00. So, I have to be there at 6:00. And some of these guys would get there at 6:00 to 7:00, sometimes 8:00. And I would spend with them a few hours. So my day would end at midnight. So 8 to 12, 8:00 a.m. to midnight, every single day. And then on Saturday was the, the training, right? And so it became this one thing that like, if you weren't at the office, you were failing. I remember having this like paranoia, this PTSD that on on a Sunday morning, I would get up at 8 a.m. I look at the clock and it was just this, this uncomfortable like stomach, like my stomach would turn like, "Oh my god, I'm late. Like I'm going to get called out. I'm going to be on GroupMe, you know, getting freaking smack talked by everybody and and and all these things." And so it, it does something to you where after a while, like the human mind starts kind of forcing itself to to be there. Like I, nobody would have to not like I wouldn't get called out a lot of times because now I was a marketing director. >> But I just felt this guilt. >> And it never went away. To this day. >> It, it, it still affects me where >> if I'm late to something, I feel like my day is over. I couldn't be, I wasn't going to accomplish anything because I started my, my day late. And so, um, you know, it's crazy. Like one thing I was going to mention is that during that time, one of the things that will hurt me the most was that I was, let's say that month I made 15,000. My top guy made like three grand that month. And this is the guy that was there as many hours as me, probably doing the same amount of work that I was doing. Um, and he only made like three grand. A, and everybody else was making $50. I, I would get their commission checks because they would all be under my, my, my dashboard. $50, $100. And these guys were the ones that would like be pushing for me. We would call them flag carriers. A flag carrier gets your MD, it gets you, your upline to their promotion. These guys were like my, my flag carriers that would be there all day long pushing and fighting for me. And I felt bad because there was one guy that I, I, I completely humiliated um because he told me he was going to do three recruits that week. He didn't do it. And so his punishment was, if you don't do it before we started this, this competition, it was like this, this bet. If you don't do three recruits, what do you, what do you give up? He's like, "You could cut my hair." Like, everybody's like on board for that. And I was like, "Okay, cool. If you don't get three recruits, I'm cutting your hair." And, and guess what? It was this one thing was like, I'm a dad now and, and the one thing I always try to do with my kids is I try to keep my promises. If I tell my son I'm going to go get ice cream with you today and I don't do it, even though he's little, he's going to remember my dad told me this and he didn't do it, right? He didn't follow through. And it was kind of like that when with my agents. I had to keep my promises. So guess what? At the end of the week, "Hey, how much, Chris, did you get?" "Uh, one." "You didn't do three. I have to keep my promise. I have to cut your hair." Even as much as I don't want to, I have to keep my promise. So, guess what? We told everybody he's getting his haircut today. He didn't do what he was supposed to. We had maybe 150 people there at the office that day. Brought him up to the front. I get the machine. I cut his hair in front of everybody. Complete humiliation. This guy is looking at me just smiling, but you could tell he's just wanting to cry. And, and I'm right there cutting his hair in front of everybody. Everyone was screaming like the Wolf of Wall Street when they're throwing those midgets against the the the the bullseye dart or whatever that that's what it was. Everybody was hyping him up, like hyping me up, cut his hair, like throw the hair, all these things. And this guy's right there getting humiliated. Yet the week before that, Marco, he was right there every single day with me at the office grinding every single day for me. And, and, and the next week I'm couldn't stand in front of everybody. And yet, guess what? He was like, "Thank you for keeping your promise. I deserve that." And, and at the time I was like, "Yeah, you do." You know, like I, that did what I was supposed to do. Everybody loved it. And we started this whole culture that people were shaving their heads. At one point, this girl cut her haircut. She had beautiful hair and we cut her hair. I didn't, but they, they cut her hair because she didn't keep that promise. And that's the thing I was telling you when I was telling you or before we got on this call, I helped shape the the Bakersfield culture. I was one of the main drivers for it. And, and without really thinking about it, we were, you know, starting this culture where it was like, no excuses. Go out there and just make it happen. We're young. We're, you know, we're going to be successful, all these things. And, and I was one of the main drivers for this, this culture. And I would tell people this when I would go to different offices and they would ask me, "How, what are you doing in Braggersville that's different?" Because we do all these things already, but it's not working. I would say it's like starting a little fire, right? You start a little bonfire and you just add more things to it. You add twigs, you add this, you add branches, and before you know it, it turns into this wildfire you can't even control. People were getting recruited, Marco, without really even getting a proper presentation just because they're like, "What are you guys doing?" Like, it just sounds like I want to be a part of something. And that's that MLM culture that people get, get recruited because they don't want to miss out, that FOMO. I don't want to miss out and I don't want to get recruited. And it was this constant just this, when I, when you, I really look back at it, I felt horrible. And that's what led me to eventually leave PHP. That I started realizing how many lives I was hurting. There was this, this couple that was under me that was like $10,000 in debt. They, they rolled up to the office one day in a brand new car and I'm like, "How did you get this car if you tell me you're this much in debt?" "Oh, you know, I figured it out." And, and I just remember thinking, you got a personal, let's say they got a personal loan, they're going to take forever to get out of that. I, they're, they're so deep in this hole that I, I felt responsible for, right? And there was these people coming up to me. Now, like I told you, I was, I was Emanuel Rosales, this marketing director, celebrity, and they would bring people to me. "Hey, this is my guy. I just got started. He's 18 years old. I told him your story, and he's excited to to get started with us." And I would have to look at him in the eyes and lie to him that he was going to be successful when I knew in reality he was going to quit. But I had to lie to him. I had to go to his parents' house and sit in a bucket because his parents had no money. Their, their fridge was literally a mini fridge. Their, their couch was, their couch was this hand-me-down couch that was completely just destroyed. Their, you know, like they didn't even have a chair for me, Marco. So, I had to sit in a bucket outside because they were embarrassed of how dirty their house was. And I have to sit there and tell the the parents of this kid, "He's going to be successful. Look at me. I'm successful. Look at the car I'm driving. I'm driving a BMW." And, and I came from nothing. Your son's going to do that, too. Their family, you know, and it's crazy because it's my own people. It's the Hispanic community that I would preach about me wanting to change. Yet here I was being that freaking, you know, hypocrite, lying to them. Their family was thanking me, hugging me, you know, all these things. And I would leave there thinking like I did something good, but in reality, I was hurting them. And after so much, I realized, "What the hell am I freaking doing?" Like, I would get mad at myself. Like, "You are not this person. Emanuel Rosales was a virtuous person before all of this that had high morals and and had respect for, for and and love for people. Yet, here I was being this freaking a-hole, cutting my guy's hair in front of everybody and lying to people. Like, that's not who I was." And that's what eventually led me to leave PHP. That I couldn't stand myself. I would look in the mirror and I would be disgusted with myself. And, and it's crazy because like most people don't realize that, >> you know. Yeah. Yeah, I could have stayed there and been a celebrity and gotten everything. And, you know, it's crazy as a guy. As a single guy, you're a single guy, all these girls just coming towards you, like this flock of girls just wanting to to be a part of you. I wanted to get to know you because of who you are. But to me, it wasn't enough. And it was crazy because when I left PHP, um, people didn't understand why. They're like, "Why would you leave? You have everything. You have the status. You have you're making money. You're doing all these things. Why would you leave?" And it was like, "Because I was disgusting myself. I, I hated who I was, you know?" It, it was crazy.

>> Yeah, man. You understand this so well and you're so eloquent about the way you describe it, which I'm uh so grateful for because it's, you put it into words probably better than even I could uh about what you become in pursuit of this, who you become in pursuit of this. And it's why I feel like, you know, this is just my opinion again, but it's why I feel like in my heart, MLM attracts psychopaths and sociopaths. And if you look at who's really successful, who really makes it to the top, it's people who have either been able to shut off their empathy and shut off their conscience and not have that feeling of like, "Oh, I'm disgusted with myself." Like you described because they're justifying it with how much money they're making or they're addicted to the the dopamine and the praise and the feeling like they're a celebrity or they're somebody who just genuinely doesn't care and they're a psychopath and a sociopath. I think of somebody like Patrick Bed David who's at the very tippy top of this thing, right? >> If anybody knows, like you talked about looking at your people's uh dashboard and seeing $50 here, $100 there, like this guy who made $3,000 grinding for me and I'm shaving his head. Imagine the data that Patrick himself has access to and had access to. To see the scores of people losing money, scores of people trying to hold on as long as they could, racking up debt, but then ultimately having to leave to go back to work and get a normal job. The churn rate of people. All of this to still have the audacity to show his face online and, you know, hold his nose up at everybody and act like he's this successful virtuous businessman that we should all look to as like an inspiration or like a a beacon of morality and he goes and panders on his podcast about how this is talking about right and wrong. Like, how [ __ ] dare you? You know, how dare you? You know, that's why I think he's a psychopath. It's just my opinion. You know, you have no empathy. You have no morality. You have no care for other people. It's this idea like you talked about earlier, they think that you're either a duck or an eagle and they'll say, "That's just the way it is. Capitalism, baby." And it's like, "No, I'm I'm sorry. I refuse to believe that. I refuse to be the kind of person who thinks that for me to win, someone else has to lose. I don't like that, you know, and, and it's really um, you know, I just commend you for coming to the realization on your own that you, you know what, this, this requires success, whatever that looks like in this company, requires me to compromise who I am in my heart and this is not who I am and not how I was raised. Certainly um not to scam people and certainly not to scam my own community, people who are, you know, people who look like me, people who have the same names as my relatives and whatever else. I >> say people that are in these MLMs, they know what they're doing. Like, you know, like you can't be so just blinded by by it all. Like these people that are in there know what they're doing. Like the fact that I, I was able to realize that. I didn't realize that towards the end. I realized that halfway through my career. Yeah. I continued going, but I, I was realizing how much more of this, right? It's like that one story that, that there's a fisherman, right? That, that's fishing and you know, the, the guy tells him like, "Why don't, like you're so good at fishing, why don't you open up your own company and and recruit other people to do this for you and start this big old thing, right? This, this big big business of fishing." And then he's like, "Why?" He's like, "Because like and then ultimately at the end it's like, so that you could spend time with your family and just relax and enjoy yourself." He's like, "That's what I already do now. Right? It's like, why go through all the things to do what I'm already doing." And that's what I realized. Like, if I ultimately want to become this, this person that people could look up to, a father that I could, I could feel, you know, proud of of being and having, like this, this, you know, my having my kids be proud of me, like I could do that now. I don't need this business to to do that for me, right? Um, I don't need people to praise me um and, and make me feel like a celebrity if, if what I'm doing to them is harm, right? So, it's, it was one of those things was like, people know when they, they're in these businesses, like they know what they're doing. And that little voice that, that empathetic voice that's in their mind telling them like, "You are doing something wrong," always gets shut down by them going to the office, whatever business they're in, whether it's, you know, selling lotions and potions, all these things, like that little voice gets shut down by these people that supposedly care about them, but that, that little voice is there, right? And so I feel like if more people really took time to realize who they were and, and just, you know, really let that little voice uh, um, speak to them and tell them like, "What you're doing is not right," you know? Like, it's, it's um, it's crazy that people, to me, that people choose to be in these industries, in these businesses, knowing what they're doing, right? It's, it's, it's, it's um >> it's insane.

>> You know, I will say, I think most people in MLMs uh are not bad people. I think, well, because most of them are losing money. So you can't say that they're like deriving some benefit from this and that they're being predatory on purpose. I think most people go into it with good intentions. They don't know any better. Just like you, you weren't a bad person when you joined it. And, you know, there's also an element of like this sunk cost fallacy. Halfway through, you said you had that nagging feeling in your head, but at that point, you'd already dedicated so much time, so much money. You'd built what you thought were these relationships, emotional bank account, blah blah blah. So it's not so easy to leave. And then imagine for people who end up becoming even more successful, maybe they have families, you know, at the time you didn't have a kid, maybe you had a kid and you were a little more successful financially in the company and then it's like, you're faced with this decision of like, "Well, what the [ __ ] else am I going to do?" So, I understand even how people can go on to justify it. But through conversations like this, I hope people can watch something like this and understand like, you know what, the cost is exceptional. Especially when you did all this stuff, all this prospecting, all this uh dehumanizing, all this emotional manipulation, shaving the guy's head, and you're making, I think we could fairly assume, less than minimum wage once you factored in all the hours and how much you were actually taking home. I also think people don't factor in like, you know, the people who were below you making $50, $100, the flag carriers. I don't think they were bad people. You know, they were following an example that was told to them by somebody they trust. And I have to assume they didn't anticipate that if they got to your position, marketing director, that there's this lifestyle creep that comes with it or this expectation that you're going to be leasing a fancy BMW and paying for your downline tickets and paying for these uh hotel rooms and whatever else, ordering food, DoorDashing every meal, you know, two, three times a day. So, >> you know, I, I will just say that as a as a caveat that I don't think most people in MLMs are bad people. I think they've just been led astray or they're vulnerable or they're desperate or, you know, all they did was trust their their friend. And we all want to be able to trust what somebody tells us. Even, you know, >> the guy in Barnes & Noble, like Walmart, Target, whatever. We like when people are nice to us. We like when people give us compliments. We want to believe people have good intentions. I don't want to believe that this guy walking up to me is trying to like scam me. And he doesn't even think he's scamming me. So, I can't even >> say that he's purposely lying to me cuz his cuz he, if he believes what he's actually saying, is it really lying? No, but he's been he's been misinformed and now he's misinforming others because he's been misinformed. So, um >> people started doing some crazy things, Marco, that we had a girl that literally we made her go up to the front in front of everybody that would and had to do the little chicken dance in front of everybody. Um, in front of the whole office. We had another guy go and do the same thing. We had um and then that girl, they were like, "All right, you're gonna cut your hair." And she had this really long hair. I remember she had like just really, really nice, beautiful hair. And um, they started cutting it. And I remember that we walk in and we're like, "What are you guys doing to this girl? Like, no, this is not right. You know what you're doing to her?" She's crying right there. Like, and they're like, "What do you mean? Like, you're the one that started this. Like you started this trend. You, how, how are you now feeling bad for something that you did?" And I'm like, "Because this is a girl, right? Like it's different from a guy and a girl." Like, and, and then I, when I was trying to explain myself, I realized this is not anything different, right? Like I, I, I was this horrible person and they are doing it because of me. And so I'm, I'm thinking like, "No, let's stop with this girl here, but let's just completely cut it out." And that's when there was this culture change that just said, "You couldn't do this anymore. You could, you couldn't do that anymore, right?" Um, and then they put a stop to it. But it took so much bad for there for there to be some good in in the chain lane. So, um, but yeah, no, we ended up, um, she cut her hair pretty short, but they didn't bald it because we, we intervened, you know, like a good amount of people intervened to stop it. But >> that just goes to show that people are moved >> by different ways that that we could even, even fa, like try to fathom, right? Like, there's people that move, that were there at the office because of a breakup and this was like kind of like the gym to them, right? Like this, where they got inspiration from and they had people there that >> that, that u deal with rejection and, and they all they're doing is being there so that they could prove to their family that they are somebody. Uh, you have people there that are there for so many different reasons. Um, and we would take advantage of all that. And I say take advantage because I knew that deep down, I knew that I was taking advantage of these people. Um, like I told you earlier, it wasn't, we, the, our saying was, "It's not who they are, it's who they know." You know, it's like, you look at this person, you look at Marco and you see him and you're like, "Yeah, this, this guy's not going to do anything." But it's who Marco knows that he could bring me. And all I have to do is get him as fast as possible, get me in front of that person as fast as possible before Marco quits so that I could, I could um tap into his market. And so, um, it, it did feel good recruiting 50 people a month at the office, but it didn't feel good like morally, like whenever I would go home and, and all these things. I remember there was this a, a point in my, in my um, in my life where um, my mom and dad, I remember that they posted, they made this big post about me on social media talking about, "Emanuel is now a marketing director. He's doing so good. He's making more money than his parents now. He's able to live this lifestyle and all these things." Like, and I remember my mom seeing that on Facebook and she sent it to me and she's like, "Really? Like, you're making more money than us now? You, you don't need us anymore? Like, don't, don't you remember we're the people that that helped you throughout this whole journey and now you're making it seem like you don't need us anymore?" Like, you know, and, and u, I felt bad. Like, you know, it's crazy like how people could ignore those things and just be okay with it. Like, you know, like it wasn't okay. And, uh, after a while, you know, like I realized when I left the company, to this day, those people that were there that I, I genuinely care for, like I said, they're not bad people. I, I tried to have a relationship and be friends with these people outside of the company once I left. And it was like, you know, they always felt like they had to, you know, prove themselves. Like, "Hey, how you doing? >> How you doing, man?" "Oh, no. I'm good. Doing good, man. Hey, you know, I'm, I'm thinking of starting my own business, doing this and that." Um, "I just asked how you were doing. You don't have to try to portray this thing. Yes." You know, you just be genuine with me. And I felt like nobody in the, the office was genuine. You know, you thought they were >> and then you leave and then you realize these people don't care about me. >> You know, they, they cared when I was there and what I could do for them, but they didn't really care for me. And even with like, that was like with my uplines too, you know, like they didn't um I remember Hector Del Toro one time um he um I was telling him all these things and he was just so distracted on his phone. I was like pouring in like trying to like, you know, vent to him and then he was just like, "Well, you know," he, his thing was like, "You know what to do." "I'm like, what is that?" "Go recruit more people. You solve your problems by recruiting. You solve your problems by recruiting. Right? If you're going through something, if you're, if you're going through this slight depression or you're going through a struggle in your life, guess what? Go recruit more people because you recruiting more people distracts you in a positive way where now whatever thing you're dealing with, it doesn't even matter anymore because now your focus is now on getting this recruit to the next promotion and all these things." And it was like, "Yeah, you're right." You know, like I deal with my problems by being more busy and that does not, that doesn't do any good, right? Now, that problem is still there internally, but now you just suppressed it by getting another recruit. And that was like >> it was that, that would make it okay. >> It's just endless. It's just endless. I want people to Google. I mean, this is from human traffickinghotline.org. The very first line of text that you read on the website, "What Human Trafficking Is and Isn't." Human trafficking is the business of stealing freedom for profit. In some cases, traffickers trick, defraud, or physically force victims into providing commercial sex. In others, victims are lied to, assaulted, threatened, or manipulated into working under inhumane, illegal, or otherwise unacceptable conditions. And if you click on the menu called "Labor Trafficking," it says, "Labor trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery in which individuals perform labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion." Just interesting food for thought there. I'm not uh I'm not making an assertion that anybody is doing anything illegal or that this is happening, but uh I think it's interesting and uh important to understand that. The last thing I wanted to ask you about, Emanuel, was actually there's two things. >> The first is, what was the response like when you tried to leave? If you could quickly tell me about that. Were people trying to shame you? Were they trying to get you back in? Were they, were you know, people below you trying to come to you for for guidance or clarification? What was that like? >> Yeah, most definitely. Uh, it was um, I remember very vividly. It uh, it caused me a lot of depression um that I didn't even know. So it was a silent depression that I, I uh wasn't aware of at the time. But when I left, I was already not doing pretty good in the business because I was planning on leaving. And it was this constant battle in my mind every single day of, "How do I leave, right?" Um, all I've known thus far is is this, right? Like, people know me in my town because of this. How, what can I go and do where I'm still going to be able to be okay? Like, I couldn't go back to a normal job, right? Because if people see me working a normal job, they're going to be like, "Haha, look, that's a guy that tried to recruit me or that's a guy that did recruit me and it didn't work. I told you it didn't work." Right? So that, that, that wasn't a reality for me. I couldn't go work a normal job. And it was this constant battle every single day that I was thinking, "How do I leave this business?" And I remember the day that I decided, "I am leaving. This is official." I left in uh April 2019 because April of 2015, um, I'm sorry, left in 2019 because it was four years. And I decided like, "This is the, the day I leave." And I remember that when I left, I got a visit from Del Toro. Hector Del Toro came to my parents and he was like, "Where you been at, man? I haven't seen you at the, I haven't seen you at the office." Brought me in his car and he was talking to me. He's like, "What are you doing now?" I'm like, "I, I just can't do this anymore." And he just tried to start convincing me to come back and all these things. And, and um, it almost worked. It almost worked because um, it reminded me of the time the day that he walked into to the, the, the, my orientation and he was like, "Don't show this guy MD because he's not even going to get there." And that right there was like, "I did it. I proved you wrong. I, you ever seen Molly's Game, the, the movie and the real story about Molly?" >> Right. Right. >> Like it was that, like that full circle moment. It was like, "I did prove you right." Like, I, I did prove you wrong. I mean, I, I did do what I was, I told I was going to do, but at what cost, right? And so, >> Absolutely. >> I, I remember that he, he was trying to get me back in and I, I said no. Um, I remember that I was getting constant DMs on social media, on, on everything, just people saying like, "Ah, you're a quitter. You're not going to amount to anything." I remember Patrick one time told me in my face, he's like, "You are not going to be anything besides the most you're going to achieve in your life is going to be a manager at a Nissan." Something along those lines. That's the most, right? Because you, you are not going to be anything outside of that. You are going to be a manager at a Nissan. That's, to some people, that's good enough. But I mean, that's, that's, that's how I look at you. And I remember that. I looked at him. I was like, "I'm going to be much more than that, right? Like, you're not going to talk to me like this." And that's when I think towards the end, I started being this like this going rogue where you couldn't talk to your uplines a certain way. I couldn't talk to Erica Del Toro a certain way because I had to be aligned with her. And I remember one time she was telling me like, "You, you, you're not recruiting anymore. You used to be this great badass recruiter and now you're not recruiting anybody." And I was like, "You're not there when I'm getting shut down every single day at Walmarts and Targets when people are not wanting to listen to me. You're not there when I'm DMing people at midnight trying to recruit them and then they're telling me yes and then they ghost me. Like, you're not there when I'm doing all these things. So, how dare you sit here in front of me and tell me that I'm not doing this business like the way I'm supposed to. It's just that the business doesn't work and people are now not wanting to do something like this because I've already damaged so much people in my city >> with a bad taste of PHP that now these people are not wanting to get recruited for my own actions because this business doesn't work. >> Right. >> So, I remember that like people were like, "You cannot talk to her like that." It's like, "How can I not talk to her like this? This is another human being. This is not somebody special, right?" And so, I remember when I left, I was getting these DMs all day long. People were saying that I was a quitter, that that I was a duck, that I failed, that I wasn't going to do anything. And it was just, it caused a depression for me that I, I felt like PHP was all I was >> ever like that was who I was, >> Of course, >> Emanuel PHP. And it was a shadow that I couldn't get rid of. Wherever I went, wherever I walked, wherever I went, it was this PHP shadow that would be following me that was just lingering all the time. And, and I couldn't tell people why I really left. I left because I realized I was a monster. Um, and I, I, I was hurting people, but I couldn't tell that to people. If I would have told that to somebody, they'd be like, "Yeah, right. You just failed. You, you couldn't make any money. You failed." And so that's what it was. I left and I was getting all these these messages, all these people making fun of me, all these people threatening me that that uh I, that if I, wherever I went, whatever industry I went to, that to, I, I better not take any any agents with me or or deceive other people to think that they should join me somewhere else. And so it was like this constant just um just, you know, hate that was being thrown towards me. And >> um and, and it really hurt at the time. Right. I, I, I, one time I told one of my buddies, I was like, "Things like that, if, if somebody wasn't mentally strong and, and um had a good support system." My, my family took me back in. They, I apologized to my friends, to my family of the person I had become. I apologized to my parents for for missing birthdays, for missing their events, for missing those texts, those calls. And my mom, I love my mom and dad. And I would not talk to them for months because I was so focused in the business. And I, I had to come back and apologize like kind of like with dog comes with his tail between his legs. And I had to apologize to my family. I apologized to all my friends, everybody that I hurt. I was apologized to everybody. And then the good thing is that their response was good >> and I had a strong support system. But I was telling one of my friends one time, I was like, "If somebody didn't have a strong support system, you know, the, the suicide might even be a freaking option for some people because now you realize I'm nothing outside of this business, what they made me out to be." >> And, and if you don't have a support system that's strong enough >> there, it could be pretty catastrophic, right? Not saying that I was attempting anything, but >> um I was just grateful that I had a strong support system that it decided to forgive me. You know, >> You're correct. And it does happen. I've heard stories. It does happen. Horrible things happen because of MLM. Not just financial losses, relationships, divorce, you know, estrangements from relatives. It's this is another one of the invisible shackles that you touched on, which is that even after you try to leave, you have these voices like literal, not like literal people telling you, literal people's voices telling you these negative things, saying that you're a duck, you're a quitter. And think about the, it takes a lot of humility to be able to say to the people that you were trying to recruit and and flex on, you know, "I'm sorry, I was wrong. You know, this wasn't actually the thing." It takes a big person to do that because it, it's hard. You've just been posting for the last four years about how you're a successful businessman and how this is the thing and how if you're not going to join it, you're missing out and blah blah blah. And now you leave. And there's an inherent, like people, you have to imagine people are wondering like, "What's up with this guy? Why is he leaving his uh his, you know, no successful businessman would leave a business that's making him a bunch of money and whatnot and he tried to get me into this?" And especially in your small local where you're literally walking around to different physical stores trying to talk to people, you, you build a reputation, you know, especially four years of doing that consistently, you build a reputation. And that's another thing is it's like, if you leave, even if you have an amicable uh separation from the company and nobody is calling you a duck and trying to shame you or get you back in or whatever, even then you've just been telling people for years that this was like the thing that's going to make me rich or whatever. And so it's like, well, you're like you said, your identity is like tied to that. You know, you, you're a young man at that point, 22 years old around there, >> and you're all you've really known in your adult life is this thing, >> and now you have to like start over, which you're still young at 22, but still it sucks to start over after spending four years on anything. And uh, yeah, it's uh another very astute point that again, people don't often see when they go into it. But yeah, very grateful that you had uh >> years to get out of that too because like I told you, I couldn't work a normal job. >> The jobs that I would go work, I would like look for jobs that were like remote that were work like with no people, no interaction, right? Because I didn't want people to see me. >> That's right. And even you probably felt in your mind a little bit still like, "Oh, I'm working at Jo O." Like, you know, for the last four years you've been taught to [ __ ] on the concept of working an making an honest living. >> Exactly. Like this is the thing I would preach about like that. It was horrible. And now I'm here, right? And so, you know, what's crazy though? I'm grateful for all the self-development I really did that I took the the good from because when I was there, my first, the like what like I had worked at Home Depot, right? But other than that, it was like no like real job. And like I, I was just there like I remember being at Home Depot working while going to the office and like I would just do the bare minimum at Home Depot because like I, I was like, "I don't care for if I get fired, who cares? Like they're doing me a favor." But when I actually went to go work at a job, I remember that like I had co-workers and for the first time, Marco, I could go with my co-workers to get lunch and that we could afford it because at the company, "Hey, let's go get lunch." "Oh man, I I got no money. My bank account is at $0." One time this guy showed me he was negative like $50. He's like, "Bro, I, I as much as I want to eat, I can't eat today." And now here I have to go and get a $10 bill and be like, "Hey, let's go get Taco Bell." I remember Taco Bell, like, like that was my, my favorite spot because they, they used to have the deals, the meal deals. It was the DLDD got me through my whole career in PHP. It was the freaking bare burrito, the nach, the chips, the the Doritos, and then the drink. And it was like four bucks. And so that would get us that would get me and another person a meal for the day. And, and I remember like when I left PHP and I was with my co-workers and I was like, "Let's go get lunch." And they were like, "Let's do it." And I was like, "This is so freaking cool." Like it was so cool, like taking a day off, right? Because at PHP you couldn't take a day off. Like >> Yeah. You couldn't, you couldn't at all. And so my first day off where I could sit at home and not do anything. Silence and solitude was gold. It was insane. >> Yeah. And you're also not trying to like prospect the waitress or like, you know, pour into the emotional bank account of the person sitting across from you and all this nonsense. >> And it was crazy because like I felt alive. I felt happy. And guess what? You can't tell that to people. You tell that to somebody that is in a business like that. Like, "I'm excited to have co-workers to go get lunch and have a day off." And they're like, "You're freaking crazy. Like that >> that doesn't that's not worth anything, right? That's >> that has no like monetary value." But to me, it was priceless. Um >> it was priceless when I could be at a birthday party with my family because at PHP I couldn't because of course it would end on a Saturday. I had training on Saturday. I, when I was there like >> I was so genuinely happy >> but then with a slight depression at the end of the night, I go to bed. >> Um, I would just think about all the things and, and then get, you know, it's crazy like it was also this thing that it takes years to leave, get out of because it was like, "Who am I now outside of this, right? Like >> Yeah, yeah. >> You know, like I, I do miss like during those times I did miss when I would go to a different office and everybody was clapping and cheering for me. Um, and, and you know, that recognition. Like I did miss it at one point. >> But you're missing out on what's really important. You know, you miss your mom's birthday and they can just say to you, "Oh, well, become senior marketing director. Every day will be your mom's birthday." Or some nonsense like that, you know? So, >> Right. And, and it was, it was really hard after I left. Um, I think it took me a good about four years to to really um start separating myself from that identity that I had. And now um I have, I have kids. I, I'm married. I um I have everything that I could always uh think in and like I always dreamt of having a PhD uh owning a house and having cars and all these things. And, and now I'm able to experience all these things. But it was such a hard journey getting to this point where I felt, you know, powerful in my own personality because at PHP I, I, I felt like that was the only thing I was that I felt like PHP was the only thing that got me that that feeling, right? But >> no, it took a long time and I just for anybody that is in those businesses, just know that there is that light at the end of the tunnel where there is that potential of of of being free. >> Yeah. This is the last thing I wanted to ask you about. I'm sorry this this uh has gone run so long, but um you, you did touch on it briefly, but I wanted to ask since this was kind of in the early days of PHP, you know, PHP was founded 2009. We're talking 11 years ago, 2015ish. What was um Patrick's level of involvement or did you have any interactions with him that were notable? I think you mentioned probably the biggest one which was saying him telling you that the biggest thing you're going to do is work at a Nissan dealership. Like uh what else happened with uh Patrick specifically? >> So about at this time, Patrick was very involved, very, very involved in the business. Like to the point where he would have um he would work with like seven people at the time, like the biggest, the, the people that were doing the best in the company. He would work with them on um really closely. They would have calls um Alejandro was one of them where he would work directly with Patrick. So everything that Patrick was telling Alejandro, Alejandro would tell us because it was like a direct thing, right? So, um, he was very involved. He would come to the Bakersfield office, um, a few times. He would, um, um, at events, he was like the main speaker. Um, you know, he wasn't the celebrity. I remember that like I remember when Patrick actually became PBD, too. Most people know Patrick now. He did a video where, um, it was like this motivational video about, you know, the struggles of an entrepreneur and that he posted on Facebook and it went viral and that's where Valuetainment came about. So I was there where Patrick was, there was no Valuetainment. There was no Patrick but David. Now it was just Patrick by PHP and so he was very involved. Very, very involved. >> Got it. Thank you for that. Okay. Well, look, man. I, I want to say thank you so much for for sharing this because you have such a good, well-thought-out recollection of your story, and you're able to describe so vividly and so accurately what happened to you, the tactics they were using, what the purpose was, the reality of becoming successful in something like this. So, I, I really appreciate you uh sharing all of this with me. Really, I couldn't have uh described it better myself. >> My pleasure. Thank you for for for giving me the time to tell you my story to tell you uh and to everybody else that that will eventually come across this, just know, you know, really, really think about, do your research, right? Like I feel like something I didn't do. I didn't do research. Like I, I felt like my story was one of those where I did go through like becoming like being nothing to now being like somebody in the company, eventually realizing that it wasn't worth it and leaving, and then now I'm a testimony. You can leave after the success and, and still find it outside of the company. And that company doesn't have to be the only reason why you feel like you're successful. And um, and yeah, thank you for for for giving me the time, Marco, and, and I appreciate it. I've been watching you for for years now, actually. And so it's, it's good to finally talk to you one-on-one and have this opportunity uh here with you today. So, I, I just hope and I just really praise you for the mission that you have and what you're doing because um, I feel like without you knowing and, and nobody will ever sometimes they might even, you will never even be aware of this or they'll, people won't message you to tell you, but you are changing people's lives um in, in a silent way at times and um, and you could have prevented so much more other things, you know, through what you're doing with your platform. So, thank you for what you do as well. >> Yeah, man. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. That means a lot, honestly. Um, that's why I keep doing this despite all the pressure and the lawsuits and the the nonsense. >> Thank you for all you're doing. >> Thank you, man. All right. Have a good one. >> You, too. >> Bye.

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I Spent 4 Years In Patrick Bet-David's Cult

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