Girl, Start Apologizing: Rachel Hollis, MLMs, & Author Ethics

sometimes I wonder if I've been too hard on best-selling author and motivational speaker Rachel Hollis in the past I've been known to say things like girl so where's Rachel yeah overhyped [ __ ] off Rachel now we all know what the worst self-help book I ever read is sing it with me everyone girl know where she keep seeing her [ __ ] face everywhere so I don't need to go too deep into why I hate girl wash your face so much I have an entire 14 and a half minute review I did about my problems with this book what is the worst book you've ever read that everyone else loved guys I can't help myself everybody me girl no way but I don't know if I should be saying those things because I'm also a writer just like she is and I've also been known to say things like hashtag writer's support writers rating is already a hard enough thing to make into a career let the Silicon Valley tech CEOs look down upon us from their fat stacks of cash we don't need to be looking down on each other but in addition to believing that writers should support other writers I also believe things like you know who doesn't count as a small business multi-level marketing schemes what's not wonderful about these events is multi-level marketing now Sammy what does your hatred of pyramid schemes have to do with whether or not you've been too hard on the author Rachel Hollis [Applause] that what is this a crossover episode yes my friends of booktube my mortal enemy Rachel Hollis got a gig speaking at a multi-level marketing conference now you might say something like girl collect your paycheck or girl take any speaking gigs you can possibly get because it's already hard enough to make a living in this world as a writer and you would be right normally I would agree and have no problem with that if Rachel didn't say things like to me this shows that rachel has moved on from body shaming women to full-on scamming them if you want to see more of what I mean by rachel body shaming women check out my girl wash your face review which is linked in the cards and I say rachel has been scamming women I don't want you guys to worry because as the drama community would say I'll be pulling plenty of receipts this receipt was actually from shipping all the Kickstarter viewers I even have customs forms from my international orders if you guys pre-ordered a plushie from my Kickstarter let me know if you like it but back to my original question how I've been too hard on Rachel Hollis do I owe her an apology I'll let the title of Rachel's new books speak to that for me yes just like rachel recommends i am going to stop apologizing girl and i am gonna start with you Rachel I am NOT gonna apologize to you because I'm not sorry for [ __ ] [Music] what's up my fellow small business supporters I'm savvy if you're new to this channel please remember to click the subscribe button because every Monday Wednesday and Friday I have new videos coming out about books writing tips toys aren't dogs in business today's video will cover a few of those different topics mainly writing and books but also business a little bit but this particular video might feel a little different to you guys coming from me I have heard from doing my assumptions video as well as just kind of hearing your guys feedback and comments to me that I come off as a very chill booktuber I think everyone has this perception of me that I'm like this cool kid who's just cruising around Chicago on my skateboard listening to nirvana which is true if by that you mean that I waste time staring at YouTube videos of Dave Grohl's sexy ass beard and then get super drunk on shots of bourbon and then fall off of my skateboard in the middle of a parking lot basically I seem to have given you guys some impression that I'm much cooler than I am so let's just shatter the notion that I'm cool or chill or whatever let's shatter any notion that I'm not just as prone to rage fueled drama or drama fueled rage or coffee fueled rants today I will be spilling some piping hot tea which is stuffed full of laxatives to make all my post partum friends out there lose that extra baby weight by making you [ __ ] out a hurricane of diarrhea equivalent in weight to your firstborn child is what I would say if I were trying to sell you on a multi-level marketing scheme but I am an author who is here to entertain you not to scam you and that my friends is why I have chosen Rachel Hollis as my mortal author enemy who promotes immoral essential oil enemas is what I would say if I were a slam poet because that assonance was sick as hell but I don't have any proof that Rachel promotes essential oil animals of any kind only Beachbody products which are equally dangerous which we will get it but savvy why do you have a mortal author enemy when you are a writer who supports and respects writers because Rachel doesn't support or respect other writers which leads me into part one of this video so before we delve into Rachel's pyramid-shaped web of lies let's start by looking at Rachel as a writer generally to be a writer you only have to do two things one right and to not plagiarize pretty simple you think if you have interesting ideas and things to say and you want to be a writer who writes words that come from your head you would be not stealing other people's words and ideas and trying to pass them off as your own one would think now let me be clear I know that no ideas are truly original I believe in borrowing like an artist that we should allow ourselves to be inspired by the works of others to play off of similar tropes and themes and ideas I support fan fiction I support fair use I mean hell look at how many other clips from other videos and things I included my own YouTube videos I support collaboration in the creative process I support picking apart other works of art and putting them back together into something new and I support the use of other people's words with credit what I don't support is taking other people's quotes and putting them on your Instagram or in your book and pretending that they are your own quotes in a true of Michael Scott fashion except Michael actually did give credit to Wayne Gretzky in a weird way so Michael want and Rachel zero here are some examples of Rachel taking other people's quotes putting them on her Instagram as her own or even writing them in her book which she then would sell to other people but real quick I would be remiss if I did not first give credit to those who alerted me to this problem to my sources where I got this information so I won't let you guys know that throughout this video I will be referencing a video made by the youtuber Kiki Chanel her video first alerted me to this problem when I was watching it the other day I also am gonna be referencing a BuzzFeed article that breaks down some of the quotes that rachel has plagiarized and links to their original sources and where they're from so I got a lot of information from there as well I will link to all of these original sources in the description below so you guys can check those out as well and look right at the source if you want first example Rachel's Instagram has a quote on it that says every year you close a new chapter in your story please don't write the same 175 times and call it a life pretty inspirational if you ask me but apparently best-selling author and leadership expert Robin Sharma was the first one to say this in 2014 when he tweeted don't live the same year 75 times and call it a life I got that like slightly paraphrased maybe I don't know I feel like if I submitted that on turnitin.com I would get in trouble next this is a quote that Rachel posted not only on her Instagram but also in her new book girl stop apologizing ambition is not a dirty word I agree on quite ambitious okay just to be clear it seems that it's not clear whether or not that quote is from her book on her Instagram she attributed it to herself and made it sound like it was from her book but in her book it appears that the code is actually ambition is not a bad thing in fact the definition is downright poetic a strong desire to do or achieve something typically requiring determination and hard work so that's slightly different so I don't really know what she's doing there but ambition is not a dirty word is actually a self-help book title by Deborah Condren who is a different self-help book authors and Rachel so she just kind of lifted that right out of there there's a ton of these so I don't want to waste your time going through every single one but I will finish off the BuzzFeed article with this one that says don't make yourself small so others feel more comfortable apparently this quote was actually written in the book the balanced mom raising your kids without losing yourself by Bria Simpson whose quote technically said don't shrink yourself to make others feel more comfortable rachel says don't make yourself small so others feel more comfortable so she like change the word shrink to make small which I guess counts as a paraphrase I'm not sure like again I'm not saying this is necessarily legally plagiarism just it's like kind of weird and then I looked at Rachel's Instagram recently and saw that she has changed this quote again slightly more and posted it twice more on her Instagram which is don't downplay what you've achieved because it makes others feel uncomfortable which I'm okay with that paraphrase of it because it's different enough that she's like not talking about making yourself smaller or shrinking yourself she's talking about downplaying your achievements we can all word the same ideas in different but she's posted this twice recently once on May 22nd at once on July 9 so basically this has been going on for a long time it would be one thing it would still not be an acceptable thing they don't do one thing if she were just stealing from like other successful leadership coaches and cell health book authors who are equally as wealthy and famous as are which I don't know I haven't read most of those books so I don't know if those people are like more or less famous than her whatever but it would be one thing if she were just like ripping off successful people which you know it still wouldn't be okay it's the won't even be remotely ethical but I think it's another thing entirely to be ripping off smaller writers if you guys have seen my author 2 book haul or my Kickstarter rewards book haul or my indie book box unboxings or anything like that you know that I love to support smaller authors I love to support smaller creators in every single video I post a saying don't forget to support small businesses I am a small business owner I support that 100% I support writers who are just starting out I support independent authors all of that so I ask you if you are a big successful millions of copies selling best-selling author what is the worst thing you can do to a smaller author leave them a bad review no that's just free speech plus all reviews help the algorithm price promote and market your book better than theirs no that's just healthy competition in a free market deal their content and pass it off as your own yeah that's a dick move don't do that but of course that is exactly what Rachel did while I was researching Rachel Hollis's plagiarized quotes that were in her books I saw a post on a Facebook group this Facebook page was called the outnumbered and mother by Amy hunter and apparently this is a mom blog that this woman Amy hunter runs she posted about the fact that Rachel Hollis who at the time of her posting this which was in December of 2018 girl watch her face was the second best-selling book on Amazon according to this post at least and she was like Rachel Hollis is plagiarizing my work she's plagiarizing the work many of her friends so apparently Rachel runs another Instagram called motivation for mamas and on that page she stole this person's meme that says sorry were 500 hours late but my toddler insists on buckling his car seat by himself now that's kind of funny like I assume if you're a parent that's probably hilarious like I've never seen a child try to buckle a car seat but I assume it's annoying but that's what this person posted and then what shows up on this motivation where Mama's page is the exact same quote but with their @ symbol and their watermark on it like they passed it off as their own yeah that's a new low is to steal content from mom bloggers who are generally they're usually not best-selling authors usually bloggers are either authors who are starting out or they're authors who are making a smaller income based on ad revenue from their plugs or merch revenue or things like that as a smaller author myself and a vlogger here on YouTube I know how hard it is to make money in this kind of industry in this kind of world and to have someone who's already way more successful than you just stealing that from you that's absolutely heartbreaking I mean I guess that kind of goes along with pyramid scheming so we'll get to that but for now I have a joke for you a motivational speaker a self-help book writer and author who steals other people's content and Instagram influencer who empowers hashtag boss babes and entrepreneur with a very hazy business mission all named Rachel Hollis walk into a convention center what are they there for a pyramid scheme summit which leads us to so this is going to focus on a multi-level marketing company called Beachbody and a convention that Rachael was recently at for that the Beachbody summit was held from July 11th to 14th which at my time of filming this that was about two weeks ago and it was held in Indianapolis which is about three hours away from me where I am in Chicago it so for some context I'm gonna give you guys a quick breakdown of what all of this means Beachbody is a multi-level marketing company that sells weight loss shakes and exercise regimens for the most part from what I've heard their workout routines are actually pretty good so like credit where credit's due but their coaching program is a borderline pyramid scheme I say a borderline pyramid scheme because I don't want to straight-up call it a pyramid scheme and get in trouble for slander in fact let me go on the record real quick and clarify that I think that rachel is borderline plagiarizing like in part one I think she was borderline plagiarizing I'm not here to try to accuse her of the actual legal crime of plagiarism I'm just here to say that I think she was stealing other people's ideas but I'm sure in real life she found some kind of legal loophole just like the loophole she found when she was masquerading as a 19 year old virgin what is technically a virgin are you saying that you were using the poop hole loophole I was right you do need to know where so I can't say for certain that she legally plagiarized I'm just saying that ethically or morally based on my own standards as a writer it seems like she didn't really come up with all the ideas herself but back to Beachbody the borderline pyramid scheme it's not legally classified as a pyramid scheme because in order to be legally a pyramid scheme which is illegal and you get shut down and get in all kinds of trouble you have to not have an actual product you just have to be taking monetary investments from one person and paying them off to another person in a pyramid like structure this company has a product they're selling so they're able to classify themselves as like a direct sales company like they technically sell these workout programs and these shakes but like deep down I think everyone the real money comes from recruiting other people to become your downline and sell under you and be like the next person below you in the pyramid so people will they basically sign up for Beachbody to become coaches they sell workout programs and shakes to their customers and they sign people up to be other coaches under them and then they get a percentage of the Commission's from the people under them and then those people get a percentage of the Commission's from the people that they sign up under them and this goes on and on until the world runs out of each body coaches and or humans can people actually make money from selling Beachbody so to find that out I looked at beach bodies official income disclosure statement which shows that during the 2018 calendar years 74% of coaches earn an average of 402 dollars per year 402 dollars then the Beachbody income disclosure statement hits us with this cute little disclaimer right here the earnings listed below do not include any expenses incurred by a coach and operating and growing their business which can vary wildly any expenses so that four hundred and two dollars a year was revenue not profit excuse me I don't like doing beach bodies website which explains that once you sign up as a coach you are charged $15.95 per month just to keep your business active it costs you 16 dollars a month to work for Beachbody and if you work for them you'll be one of the coaches who on average brings in four hundred and two dollars per year so coaches on average are actually bringing in like half of that four hundred and two dollars per year because about like 200 ish dollars is spent just keeping your account active and that's not including any of your other costs like purchasing their shakes to actually drink yourself which they encourage you to do because they want you to be an example of the weight loss you're doing other people so you're buying their shakes to drink yourself you're buying their workout program section to yourself at that cost as in factoring it all neither do any other business operating costs like marketing costs are advertising caught like none of that factors in so all of those costs are going on top of that website feed you're only bringing in in a revenue 400 and $2.00 as an average which that's not the median that's the average so who knows if the median is probably actually lower because the people up top tend to bring in like the big box now I'm not a gambling kind of man but if I were I'd say that people are actually losing money in this so anyway a few weeks ago Beachbody had their annual summit it's like a professional development conference where everyone goes to learn how to get into better shape and exercise better by climbing up a pyramid so I looked online in the tickets for this conference generally go from like 125 to 295 dollars per ticket like that's the b2 get into this conference so not only are people paying monthly for the privilege of selling these products paying for the products themselves but they are also paying to go to this summit that is held by the company they supposedly work for when they're already making less than minimum wage if anything per year not only do they have to pay for their own hotel and travel expenses to get there they have to pay to actually get into the conference which is what beach bodies corporate is going to be making money off of but savvy what does this have to do with Rachel Hollis the girl who taught me how to wash my face our girl Rachel was this year's Beachbody Summit keynote speaker she stood up in front of a crowd of tons of people and gave them a motivational speech about how to keep on doing Beachbody Rachel Hollis is officially scamming women thankfully many people recorded her performing the speech up on stage so I have some clips that I can show you guys I will link to the sores in the description below but I want to give a quick disclaimer for any people who posted videos of this please do not spam them do not leave hateful comments to them in fact just probably don't interact at all because you don't know them and like that's weird and creepy to do just like don't do that just because someone attended this conference does not mean they're a bad person and it does not mean that I condone anybody giving them any kind of problems in fact a lot of people who get involved in MLMs are victims rather than villains i included the link to cite my source because that's more than Rachel ever but please do not send hate to anyone involved in anything that I mentioned in this video including Rachel Hollis so let's now take a look at Rachel's speech I love the fact that I was presented to you because we tend to cease the Beachbody Coaches in my community as high achievers Beachbody Coaches as high achievers I think the income disclosure statement put that one to rest Rachel [Music] who's in the heart you can either persevere profession I think it's safe to say everyone's in the middle of a heart season if we go by the income disclosure statement all right Rachel this is all too easy why are you giving me points that I can easily reach for you with the income disclosure statement every little die okay this is where the real problems start rachel is basically saying here you chose this path because you want to be financially free you chose this path of working more than 40 hours a week to make less than minimum wage if you were working 40 hours a week and it's because you want to be financially free this is a problem because a lot of people go into multi-level marketing companies thinking it's going to bring them financial freedom I know people that this has happened to in my own life I know people who have been living in low-income circumstances who have been living below the poverty line and who are saying okay I need to take this on because I need to make extra income I need to break myself out of this but they end up spending more and more money and getting greater and greater in debt as we just saw from looking at how beach bodies income disclosure statement is working and how much people are actually bringing in versus how much they have to spend so the idea of financial freedom is completely a myth except for the people up at the very top of the pyramid who likely joined years and years ago you are not going to become financially free in this you're just not it's a lie and the fact that she's promoting this and saying this to these people she's like these she's somebody they look up to somebody who has successful earned a ton of money who has made a successful career for herself and is earning a lot and they're like yes she can do it I can do it and she's saying I can stay in this company she's giving like the worst advice she's outright lying to these women unless she joins your downline now this quick little story from Rachel doesn't really have anything to do with multi-level marketing at all but just like listen to this real quick and tell me what you think videos rocket ship taking off things are just breaking off inside back into the ocean that story made me sad you know why because she told it beautifully because she told it with so much expression because she connected to the audience on such an amazing level because she did a bomb-ass job relating to people telling that story rachel is a [ __ ] fantastic motivational speaker she is amazing at public speaking she's good at what she does and it just crushes me that she's not using that power for good that she says she's using her power to uplift other women and to motivate them but we can see the hard evidence here that she is encouraging women to stay in a program in a company that is financially taking advantage of them she is not practicing what she preaches and it just kills me because it's like she has the skill she has this power where she can connect with other people and she's just squandering it to make money and that just kills me like that's that's sad she's good at this she could be doing so much more all right Rachel you're like well like 34 35 36 something like that I think you might even be technically a millennial yourself she's got silly act like she's like this guru like she's a super wise person who knows all this stuff that we don't when really she's like not that old she's pretty young actually it's about like do you like Millennials ugly girl you grew up with the Internet - okay okay Rachel you're a business owner I'm a business owner we both know you're lying on this one am I really as a small business owner who barely makes enough to get by on in a year gonna sit here and explain to our best-selling author with millions of followers our girl Rachel the concept of what an oversaturated market is do we think that Rachel does not understand supply and demand the very basis of any economic study of any kind like for real you get to blame everyone else for why your business is not where it should be yeah because when you're in an MLM you really do blame everyone else because you recruit your own competition there are no territories now that we have the internet so like yeah back in the day when we had like the Mary Kay or the Avon lady walking down the street like she sold to just that neighborhood and maybe made a little bit side cash it was all good nowadays with these Beachbody Coaches selling on the Internet they can sell to anyone and so then they're encouraged to recruit other people who are then selling the exact same products over saturating the market with certain products and now there's tons of people selling them and there isn't the same level of demand to keep up for that because the people that you know you're encouraged to recruit so you can't sell them because they now have the same product in this business it literally is because of other people that your business isn't doing well it's because there are too many other people in it Rachel do you not know what an oversaturated market is I mean you're an Instagram influencers so and you [Music] the size of your audience and your customers actually matters a lot so I think that like Rachel's to giving the opposite of business advice I don't get what she's doing but people who do have more people to buy from them are gonna do better and like yeah maybe that means you need to build up your audience build up your following whatever but like am I wrong and thinking she's being willfully ignorant here and just like telling people straight up like lies like and like what why all right I googled this quote and I saw it attributed to both Eric Thomas and to Dale Carnegie in a slightly different form so Rachael I believe that quote is plagiarized not to say you can't use other people's bits of wisdom in your speech because maybe you are a better public speaker than their but you give credit it's that simple for example watch me say this knowledge isn't power applied knowledge is power that quote was said by Eric Thomas and then it was said by Rachel Hollis we need to talk about judgment because this is starting to get serious actually I know that a big tactic that MLMs use is emotional manipulation and isolation of people from their family and their friends and people who love them there are just countless stories out there of people who are like I joined this MLM I thought I was gonna make some money they encouraged me to reach out to my friends and family and constantly try to sell to them my friends and family got annoyed with me and asked me not to sell them things I told this to my upline they said they're just jealous of your success they're your haters they're whatever and they basically brainwash you into trying to believe that anyone who doesn't buy from you is out to get you which is ridiculous I have a business I don't sell products to everyone I know I've told everyone I know about my products about my stuffed animals and my book series that I created myself not bought from someone else I tell people about them and people like hey yeah I can't buy it I'm like cool what else is up like I'm not here to utilize my friendships to make sales slide in an MLM they tell you like yes sell do your friends and family but sure like let them know about the fact that you're selling something but if they say no that's not a sign that they're a hater or that they don't want you to be successful it's just assignment like they don't actually want that product and like if you're a business owner you should be able to learn to sell products to people who want them and so when Rachel talks here about judgment the form of judgment in an MLM often comes from friends and family members who are worried about you who are seeing that you're getting too deep into the group mentality because the fact is for a lot of multi-level marketing companies they target women who you know maybe just had their first kid who are struggling financially who are single parents who are in a lower income bracket who don't have a lot of resources to fall back on they you know treat you like you're now part of this family you're part of this group you're our sister you're whatever kind of like cults do but that's neither here nor there and then when your family judges you for it and says hey maybe you shouldn't be in this generally they're judging you as a warning as like hey we're worried about you and we don't think what you're doing is beneficial and then Rachel's basically saying like [ __ ] that judgment just do your thing Rachel is promoting the same tactics here that MLM is use to isolate people from their family because once people are isolated from their family and friends who no longer want contact with them because they've just turned into like this sales robot machine then when they inevitably lose a bunch of money go into a bunch of debt they don't have people to fall back on and they end up staying in the business and going deeper and deeper into debt that doesn't just sound like a cult that sounds like an abusive relationship like that's [ __ ] up but this is holy [ __ ] okay you can't let others talk you out of it she's she's actively encouraging these I want to take my family summer vacation so number one they are here I want to take my family on summer vacation who knows for friends to watch one family and another family another family going on vacation and you sit home again this year the people yes they are they are those people for the most part they're your friends and family they are the people who will be going on vacation with you or whatever like they are people who generally could benefit from you not losing so much money often it's like people's spouses people's kids people's parents their siblings for like help someone I love and care about got sucked into this company and now they've been tricked into giving them all this money what do we do this is just sad at this point and I'm incredibly disappointed that rachel is using her powers as an author with a platform with a voice someone that people listen to with an amazing ability for public speaking she's using this to hurt people like when I read girl wash your face I had a lot to make fun of it with because I was like the way she phrases things is kind of weird she's kind of judgy of other women even though she preaches not judging each other this is next level this is her encouraging women to go at something harder that is actively harming them maybe maybe in her heart she believes that this is a valid way to make money but since she owns a business and she made her money herself I doubt she believes that because anyone with any business sense knows that this doesn't work in conclusion Rachael scamming people she's scamming them by taking other people's ideas and passing them off as her own and she's scamming them by encouraging them to stay in MLM even though she's just taking a public speaking fee is her own personal gain Rachael you may say that we should stop apologizing I'll admit I haven't read the new book and I do think that in general women do need to stay confident themselves and not be sorry for who they are and I'm sure that's what you're going at with it that like women should be like unashamedly themselves unless they're fat according to Rachel but Rachel when you [ __ ] up the best thing to do is to own it in the mean time I will say that girl you do need to apologize you need to apologize to everyone who's losing money and beachbody need to apologize to all the people whose quotes you stole and passed off as your own you need to put your abilities to for public speaking to good use to actually start helping people like you claimed you wanted to do that's all for today's video I hope you guys enjoyed this and maybe also learn from it let me know what you think in the comments below I know this video might be a little more controversial because normally I'm not here to just be like this other out there sucks they're doing terrible things but when I saw that like to like the video I'm a done girl wash your face it's like my biggest book review video I've ever made it has the most views and I had a lot of fun making it when I saw that that author was now participating in multi-level marketing which is a thing that has caused me a lot of trouble in my life you can watch my full video about why I hate multi-level marketing basically it has to do with the fact that it's undermining me as a small business owner and that I've seen people in my life get sucked into it when they were in financial struggles and it kills me to see what happens to people as a result please let me know what you thought of this video in the comments below I'm happy to have a discussion on anything and I really appreciate you guys watching this I will see you guys again soon in the meantime don't forget to support legitimate small businesses [Music]

Channel: SAVY Writes Books

Views: 23,071

Rating: 4.7910447 out of 5

Keywords: girl stop apologizing rachel hollis, girl wash your face rachel hollis, rachel hollis plagiarizing, rachel hollis scam, rachel hollis mlm, antimlm, r/antimlm, beachbody, beachbody pyramid scheme, self-help books, booktube, authortube, authortube ethics, author ethics, plagiarism, bossbabes, beachbody convention 2019, rachel hollis beachbody convention, kiki chanel antimlm, exposed

Id: 18f1RyyVlXY

Length: 34min 54sec (2094 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 31 2019