Good evening, everyone. It is almost midnight where I am, but I've just got to get something off my chest. Here's the real mystery. How do real MLM-ers like us, who didn't cheat and only bug family members and friends, who want to grow a profitable home business, how do we recruit A players into our down lines and create extra incomes, yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio.
Hey. I don't know if there are any other prior service members out there who are listening, but I was in the army for a while and really enjoyed it. When I was at basic training, I went through, and I actually really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the struggle, I enjoyed ... And I went in a little bit of a different time than most people do. I was actually, I was 25 when I went in. I was already married, we had a kid. It's very different setting than most people who join the military. Most of them were 9 years younger than me and were 17. Some of them had waivers to join early in life. You know what I mean? It's very different.
Already out of the gate, I was a little bit of a different person. Now, they knew that. My drill sergeants knew that. And they knew exactly who I was and who I wasn't. And they knew that I had a pretty clean record, fairly clean record, going into the army. What was funny was that towards the end of the training, it was intense, it was fun, it was ... I actually really enjoyed it. I would definitely go back to basic, just for the challenge of it, even. Which some people say it's not that hard. It was hard for me. My drill sergeant, other drill sergeants called him "the dragon". He was intense. He was really fun, though, because he was so intense. You know what I mean? I'd rather be fully immersed and give me the full, crappy experience. You know what I mean? Than something that's easy. That's just my personality; go all the way or nothing.
Anyway. Towards the end of basic training, we had shot machine guns and thrown grenades and we did all sorts of crazy stuff, and it was a lot of fun. We had done all sorts of stuff, this was in the middle of winter and very, very cold and sometimes they'd use that to their advantage, just to throw a little extra pain at us, which is a lot of fun, but not always fun in the moment. Anyway, towards the end of the training, they knew that my record was fairly clean. It just so happened, this was at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, relaxin' Jackson. I was over there, and that happens to be where the nation's polygraph center also is.
If you don't know what a polygraph center or a polygraph is, that is the lie detector that you see in movies where they hook you up to a lie detector and stuff like that, if you've ever seen ... I can't even remember the name of the movie. Anyway, whatever. They came to me and said, "Hey, Larsen, check it out. You've got an assignment that we're sending you on." They're like, "Tomorrow, what you're going to go to is you're going to go hang out with all of the new NSA, FBI and CIA agents at the polygraph center, and they're going to hook you up to a polygraph and they're going to practice reading your vitals and all the stuff while you answer their questions."
I was like, "Are you serious? That's awesome! I want to do that so bad, that'd be so cool!" And they're like, "It is actually serious, though. If they do actually find anything, they'll actually kick you out of the army. And by the way, if you do fail some of it, they're going to take you into another room and they are actually going to interrogate you." And I was like, "Awesome! Oh my gosh, this is so cool!" And they're like, "You're not supposed to want that. That's pretty intense." And I was like, "Come on, baby, break me! Let's do it!" It's just kind of my personality.
Anyway. I go over to this polygraph center and there's other soldiers over there with me, my platoon's over there, and a few of the guys. We go, and they start hooking us up, and they've got sensors on our arms and our fingertips and stuff around our chests. You know what I mean? There's all this stuff, and they are practicing reading vitals. What they taught us was really interesting, and I promise this has everything to do with MLM, just stick with me for a second, okay? What they did, though, is they taught us that when you tell a lie, there's actually a physical response to that lie. Much as how the body responds when a disease enters the body or some kind of poison. That's how your body reacts. There's a physical reaction to you telling a lie. Interesting, huh?
So what they told us to do is they said, "Hey, look. Tell the truth, but then sometime in there, tell a lie. That way the new NSA, CIA, FBI agent can tell that you're lying and it will help their training." And they're like, "And be good at it. Really try to convince them. Actually try to fool them. Be very good. Actually tell the lie. Don't tell them when you're going to tell the lie." I was like, cool. This is going to be awesome. You know what I mean? So we go in there and again, they hook us all up and everything, and the test starts. We're in the test and the test starts and they're going, and I'm only allowed to answer "yes" and "no" to things. "Is your name Steven Larsen?" "Yes." At that time, "Are you 25 years old?" "Yes." "Are you male?" "Yes." You know what I mean? So it's yes, yes, yes. No, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. No, no, no.
Well, the time came for me to lie. It's very interesting. I'm sitting in this very quiet room, it's almost like a padded room, you know what I mean, and I'm all hooked up to all this stuff. It's straight out of a Jason Bourne scene, a little bit. It felt like that, anyway. I'm sure it wasn't exactly that. But it came time for me to lie. I decided that I was going to ... I was like, okay, it's coming up. I'm going to tell the lie. I relaxed my body and they asked the next question, and I lied. And I waited for them to catch me in it and go bring me to the interrogation room or something. The agent moved forward a little bit, squinted at the screen, and slowly repeated the question again, and I took, without her seeing, took another deep breath. I relaxed my body and then I answered again the question, and I lied. And I beat it. She didn't catch it.
I was like, oh my gosh. I just beat a polygraph machine. Way back in the day when those things came out, they were way harder to fool. I was reflecting on that, I was like, how did I beat ... First of all, I was ticked that I didn't go to the interrogation room, and they were like, "Larsen, dude, you're not supposed to want that. It's interrogation. It's kind of intense. They'll actually break you." I was like, "Good!" I was like, "Yeah!" I want the sky, baby, let's do it! Make it hard!
Anyway. I beat it, though, and I lied. I talked to a few of the other soldiers that were with me afterward, and it turns out there's only one other guy who actually beat it, and everyone else they caught. I was like, how come I was able to beat that thing? And I figure out that there were two things that made it so that I could beat the polygraph machine. Again, this has everything to do with you and your MLM. It has everything to do with it. What I had to do, number one, is I had to relax my body in such a way that I had to get to a place of pure apathy, meaning I didn't care. I didn't care about anything, I didn't care about myself, I didn't care about anyone, I didn't care about my opinions or beliefs, I didn't care about anything at all. It was hard for me to reach that state, because I'm a very opinionated person, right? I was like, okay.
The second thing, though, is that ... This was the key part. This is how it actually worked, I ...
