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Pink Empire - How Mary Kay Ash Shattered the Glass Ceiling · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hello Alex, how are you today?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Doing great, Kelly.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing pretty well, man.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing uh great.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm enjoying the fall.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's you know it's my favorite time of the year, honestly, from pretty much uh October till December.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: What's your favorite time of the year?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's just pretty good.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: I I like football season.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: I like um I like all this kind of stuff.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: You're not you're not a kind of person that calls it autumn, though, I'm assuming, right?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know, I haven't really explored that word too much, autumn.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh autumn to me sounds sounds more like uh an exotic dancer's name.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: It it I think it's more poetic.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think fall is just like it's I think it's fall because the leaves fall.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty crass.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Autumn, autumn.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna start saying autumn.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I like autumn.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I like the word autumnal also.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Fall like you mean when it's cool outside, it's autumnal?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or when when the leaves fall, it's autumnal.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: You could have, we could say we have an assortment of a tummal autumnal squash today.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, would you uh you know that'd be a good Starbucks drink too, an autumnal latte.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: A tumal squash, good band name, by the way.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and and also a Olympic sport.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: Did you know I heard a thing the other day about smashing pumpkins?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh about the name?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: What is it?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and apparently he came up, um, Billy Corgan came up with that name like when he was a kid.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, if I ever have a band, I'm gonna call it Smashing Pumpkins, because it's just it like means like in his mind it was like like from the British, like no, like the British, like, oh, these are smashing pumpkins, like smashing meaning good, but also that it is like a violent activity that people do at Halloween, right?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I mean, a lot of smashing as in handsome, but so even before he ever knew how to play an instrument, he would tell people if I ever have a band, I'm gonna call it smashing pumpkins.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: Then he when he was like in high school, he would meet girls and he would tell them he was in a band called Smashing Pumpkins, even though it was a lie.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: He was he didn't wouldn't have a band.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: And then when he had a band, they're like, What should we call it?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: So he goes, Oh, I already have a name, I've had it for years.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: Apparently, this thing had lived like for 10 years before he actually started the band.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was non-negotiable at that point.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was gonna be it was gonna be Smashing Pumpkins no matter what.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think in the history of the band, that's what ended up happening was everything was non-negotiable on somebody's end.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I I have heard that about him as well.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: But but wow, and and you know, he ended up with a shaved head and looked a little bit like a pumpkin.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, yeah, exactly.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of came to fruition.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: But we're not here to talk about Billy Corgan.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: He's very much alive.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: He is alive.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to talk to you about somebody from kind of your neck of the woods.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: You ever heard of uh Hot Wells?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hot Wells.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hot Wells in a place in Harris County, yeah.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, Hot Wells.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: No, I haven't.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Is that like a hot springs kind of place?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hot Wells um was discovered in 1904.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is um it was a yeah, it was a hot spring.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was a mineral hot spring where for a while there was a sanitarium, there was a hotel, um, there were swimming pools with mineral waters in them.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: They would have uh bingo nights.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a resort for rich Houstonians.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: You ever heard of it?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: No, when I lived in Georgia, there was a place called Warm Springs.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's pretty famous.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of like that.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's where FDR used to go.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Texas has to take it to the next level.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Hot Wells is ups, warm warm springs.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: That that sounds like somebody who's been lying on the bed and you get in after them.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the springs are so warm.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I I mention all this because um our topic for today was born in 1918 in Hot Springs in Harris County, Texas.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if it was incorporated.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, Hot Wells.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hot Wells in Harris County, Texas.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in 1918, May 12th.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I will tell you that um the area where this where this um artesian hot spring mineral water was and where this resort was, in 1973, it became a uh shooting range, and then there was an accidental fatal shooting there in 2017.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It the the um place was closed, but the land is for sale today.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: You could buy it.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: You could buy this place where that used to be um hot wells.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: What part of town is it in?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's across 290 from the compact campus.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or or HP, yeah, I guess now.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, from the old compact cactus.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Did not know.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: Have you heard of it before this?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_03: No, no.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: Little secret.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: Let's buy it.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: Let's make it the dirtknap city motel.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, that's right.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: We we uh we could we could find that um spring and open that back up, and it could be like a wellness center.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it keeps you out of dirt nap city while you learn about dirt nap city.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Would you go to a wellness center called Dirt Knap City?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, 100%.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, yes, that sounds amazing to me, actually.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I would expect to be able to take a nice warm nap in some warm dirt.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um mud bath.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever I I I had this experience one time where um we were hiking in this place where you had to go across some water and the water was very cold.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was was in where was this?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was in Utah.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was called um it was near Angel's Landing, near Zion National Park.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this hike took you through these places where you had to cross through the water.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The water was extremely cold, you know, probably in the 40s, maybe 30s.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's you know, it's it's mountain water runoff or coming up from springs, it's all in the shade.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: But then when you got out, there the the shore was sandy, and you could lay down in that sand, which had been in the sun, and I don't know, man, if you've never rolled around in hot sand after being in cold water, it's pretty amazing.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: But then the problem is you're covered in hot sand.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I was gonna say, and then the only way to get off is to go in the cold water.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a vicious cycle.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: But it is.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: But all of that said, our our hero for this story was born in uh Hot Wells, Harris County, Texas, in 1918.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: She um became a pretty famous native son through her business that she opened.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now Native daughter.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Native daughter of of the Houston area um by opening a business, and her business was designed by um by design, it was made to empower women to do better in business.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: She had been passed up for some promotions for the company she worked at, um, and she decided she was going to start a company that rewarded women and favored women.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, at the time of her death, this business um was worth$1.2 billion, or that's how much they had in sales, and they had over$800,000,$800,000 salespeople.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and then you must be talking about Mary Kay.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, Mary Kay Cosmetics.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am talking about Is that her last name?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: Mary Kay, her last name is Cosmetics.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Very convenient.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Her last name was actually Ash, but she was married.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Her she was actually born Mary Katherine Wagner, and she was born in um, as I said, in in uh Hot Wells, Texas, and her mother was a nurse.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Her father, um, a guy named Alexander or Edward Alexander, he got um polio and couldn't work.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So her mother supported the family by cooking at a restaurant.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, her mother was also a nurse.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Her mother did many jobs and worked very hard and was kind of Mary Kay's inspiration, you know, seeing her mother do so many things and try so many things and yet still keep the family all together.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: She thought that was a really powerful situation.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, a lot of people um who live in non-traditional families, I think, have different kinds of role models in their lives, right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And she saw her mother as the breadwinner, and her father was still alive at that time, but she saw her mother as the breadwinner and the one really keeping it together.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that had to be very inspir inspiring for her.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, wow, yeah.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know she was from Houston.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I always thought she was from Dallas.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll get to we'll get to the Dallas connection in just a minute, but um she got married at the age of 17, and she had three children with her first husband.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Her first husband was named Ben Rogers, and so she had Ben Jr., Marilyn, and Richard, and her husband went off to World War II, and while her husband was at World War II, uh, Mary Kay took a job as a door-to-door salesman selling books, or saleswoman selling books.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Her husband returned in 1945, and it didn't work out.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: They got divorced pretty shortly thereafter.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so at that point, um, Mary Kay was working for a company called Stanley Home Products.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, have you ever heard of Stanley, Stanley Home Products?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the Stanley Steamer people?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no, different.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Stanley Home Products sold um brushes mostly, like household cleaning brushes, but also cleaning um products, you know, kind of like today you might have Clorox or Windex or you know, degreaser, oven cleaner, whatever.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: They sold early versions of that.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was started in 1931.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Mary Kay was a very successful person selling this stuff door to door.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: She would go, she would go door to door selling these Stanley products.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, interestingly, now today we think about Stanley as um Stanley Tools, and they are part of the same company, but Stanley Stanley Home Products is like a division because today I think it's all owned by Black and Decker.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow, you'd think that Stanley Steamer is closer to what they do than the home than the tools.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, the the Stanley, I don't think the Stanley Steamer had anything to do with this.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was more based on the invention of the person that invented it, but I'm not 100% sure.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that might have been in Cleveland, anyways.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the Cleveland Steamer.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she worked for Stanley Home Products, she trained men, she she she was very good at it, and so they would send um new hires, and she was one of the few women working there.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: They would send new hires to her to get trained, and she would train them, and then immediately they would get promoted beyond her level.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: They get paid more than her.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what the company would say when when they passed her by for a promotion or a raise?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: What'd they say?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: They would say, Oh, yeah, but he's got a family to support.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: The women, their money was just like play money, um, you know, for extra money, but men needed the money because they have family support, yeah.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she had she had a family to support too.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: She did.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um she kind of got sick of it all in 1963.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So she she had been working there since uh 1939.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: So what is that, 20, 23 years?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: She left Stanley Home Products in 63, and she started writing a book.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And her book was actually going to be part autobiography, but also part of a of a sort of um what do you call it when it's a manifesto for women?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, something that that would be um a guide for them to make a good living and what should be done in a business and how a business should be run and how women should be able to take their place.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: What year was this?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this was in 1963.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it turned out that her book became almost like a business plan for her.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she had gotten married earlier that year in 63 to a guy named George Hollenbach, and the two of them came up with this idea to start something that she was passionate about and run a business based on the ideals of her book, and they were gonna call it Mary Kay Cosmetics.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, unfortunately, her new husband, her second husband, George Hollenbach, died of a heart attack right when the business was taking off, and she was left distraught, she wasn't sure what to do, if she was gonna move forward or not, but her her children stepped up, and so um Ben, you know, the children from her first marriage stepped up, um, her son, her daughter, and joined her in this company, loaned her money as well to start the company, and this is where the Dallas connection comes in.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: They actually started a storefront in Dallas in a 500 square foot um space, pretty small space, and they signed up saleswomen to to help sell uh Beauty by Mary Kay.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the first name of the store.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: So had you heard of Beauty by Mary Kay or just Mary Kay Cosmetics?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, probably just the cosmetics, but where so who was manufacturing this stuff?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: Would they just buy it from people that already were making cosmetics?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she she got some deals with wholesalers.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: She would buy from wholesalers, and uh she would, you know, she was a very made-up, always well dressed, always had her hair done, always had her makeup just right.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So she was pretty familiar with the makeup world and had done some research and was able to get some wholesale products to sell in this Beauty by Mary Kay.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't think the original um Beauty by Mary Kay products were custom made.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think she was sell she was reselling existing brands, you know, L'Oreal or Avon or whatever.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I was gonna ask about Avon because Avon was also, I think, not sold in stores.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: Very popular back in the 60s and 70s.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: It would have like Avon parties.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's funny you mentioned that because actually um Stanley Home Products would have those those kind of house parties where they would bring in people, friends, and such to sell them these cleaning products and brushes.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Tupperware was another one.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, if you remember Amway, remember Amway?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, yeah.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: These were all that was their their um their their model, right?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Amway uh Herbalife.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember Herbalife?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, yeah.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: That was a health product.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, these were all early original MLM companies.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar with MLM?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Multi-level marketing.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Mary Kay decided, you know, the the business with beauty by Mary Kay, the storefront was doing well.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: She had salespeople there, but she thought she could reach a lot more people by taking on that same business model that Avon had and and Tupperware and Amway had and have these parties.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now her family was all for it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: They started doing this, they recruited women.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they started getting their own line of cosmetics at this time.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is when they switched from reselling other people's stuff to selling their own branded stuff.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but she was always kind of careful about um not wanting it to seem like what they called a pyramid scheme.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you've heard of MLM and you've heard of a pyramid scheme, and I think a lot of people think they're the same thing.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there's some similarities, but do you kind of understand any of the differences?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: A pyramid scheme, though, isn't that designed where somebody gets screwed, right?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's you you're only you bring in when you bring in people, you get paid, but eventually the it gets saturated and somebody gets left holding the bag at the bottom, right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: That so that's exactly right.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: So a pyramid scheme had to do with recruiting, it was all about bringing in new people under your team and then them bringing in new people, and you just kind of rose up on this pyramid of people higher and higher, and as you rose up higher and higher, you were making money off of everyone below you plus everyone below them, right?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was one thing.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Mary Kay did allow you to have a team and to bring in other um independent sales agents.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, these these Mary Kay cosmetics people, when I said 800,000 salespeople, that wasn't employees, these were 800,000 independent um contractors, basically.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, your neighbors, yeah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, your friends, your neighbors, uh, your family, whoever, whoever's gonna work on it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a pyramid scheme also tended to be a little bit more unrealistic with their promises.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they'd say, Oh, look, you can get rich right away, and most people didn't.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a pyramid scheme also required mandatory purchases, which meant you had to buy the the inventory, and then the inventory could be sold or it could not be sold, but you've already bought it from the company.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: The company's already made their money, and and you know, you're dependent on selling it.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And also, um, pyramid schemes didn't always have a great product to sell, like like you that would be more of something where they were selling something a little more abstract, and you couldn't necessarily just sell the product, which you could with Mary Kay.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, all of this said, Mary Kay really didn't like that idea of of a pyramid scheme, but she liked the idea of building a team, empowering women, and the multi-level marketing thing, I think, had less of a dirty um reputation than it has today.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think pyramid schemes are illegal too, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: They are, they are, yes.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh pyramid scheme.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: They probably weren't back then, but they are now.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think they have been since the 70s or maybe the 80s, um, because of a lot of whistleblowing and such.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Mary Kay, she she really, you know, from everything I read about her, and and there, I will say, if you if you Google Mary Kay Cosmetics or Mary Kay Experience or what's it like to work for Mary Kay, you get both sides of the coin.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: You get a lot of people who felt like she was a great woman who was trying to do things to empower women and to um, you know, give people the opportunity to build their own business, but you also get a lot of people that say it's a ripoff, they you know, they don't give you what they promised.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: I personally don't like the model, the multi-level modeling, um, multi-level marketing model.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's uncomfortable, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I just don't like when the boundaries between friends and business get blurred.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that when I was when I was growing up, I remember my parents actually like lost friends over this.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: That like people they would consider friends, turns out they just were trying to sell them some amway, right?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, and then you don't you wonder like, oh, did they invite us out because they like us, or because you know, like every time you go out, they're trying to sell us something.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: And is that genuine?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I actually that so I grew up with like those questions floating around our house.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so it actually kind of repulses me that model, but I see why it's exciting for someone who um, you know, maybe is a stay-at-home mom and can make kind of income by just hosting parties with their friends, yeah, in a low stress situation.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: But um the ones that make it to the very top, I mean, they must put some kind of pressure on a lot of people.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're they aren't afraid, you know.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: I do think there's personalities that are not afraid to ask and not afraid to put other people out or to be rejected by their friends or whatever.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's personalities that just don't like the uncomfortableness of that, the awkwardness of it.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd fall into the second category.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like even asking you to do this podcast with me, I remember being like, oh man, it's gonna be uh he's gonna have to do research and it's gonna be some work.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I'm comfortable asking, but really well no, but I like that I like to hear that you're like that because that meant then it makes every interaction like genuine, and you're not worried about somebody is like, oh, what are they gonna ask of you?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would hope you would know that by me about me after right 40 years or whatever it's been.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, um, you know, I I've seen people like it at uh reunions, you know, or you you know, you haven't seen in years, and they're trying to sell you some insurance or something like that.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man, I thought we knew each other better than that, you know, and or different than that.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Mary Kay is uh she had three principles for the company.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um they've they've kind of adjusted these a little bit, but her principles were God first, family second, career third.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, wow, that's amazing.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: For a was she a billionaire to uh to say uh hundred a millionaire.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she had like ninety-eight million dollars when she died.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um but but yeah, God first, uh family second, career third.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: She also, though, did say, and she was a pretty religious woman.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she did say that she wanted her agents, her her representatives, her employees, you know, the people that sh that worked for her company to be successful.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think she genuinely did.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Mary Kay, so you asked about Avon earlier.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, Avon is in bankruptcy.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know about that.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_03: Currently.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yeah.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that doesn't surprise me.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't heard from them in a long time.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they they still have some essence, they're still owned by there's parts of the Them that are owned by um uh you know a investment company, and there's parts in like different countries and continents where Avon still is a thing, but but the traditional Avon US is in bankruptcy.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: They also were sued because some of their products were shown to give cancer, and so there was some lawsuits that cost them a lot of money.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not talking about Avon.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: What we are gonna say that um Mary Kay Cosmetics, do you think they were more expensive or cheaper than Avon?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Based on your perception of the brand.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: More expensive.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And what that meant was her Mary Kay salespeople actually made more money per, you know, for every for every lipstick they sold or every blush or every eyeliner or nail polish.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: They made a higher margin.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they might make the same margin, but they would make more money because they were making the same margin on a higher, more expensive product, right?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um she really it was very important for her and as part of her company, and again, this just based on the research I did for the company to be inclusive.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this was racially, this was um religion, you know, this was also people from different countries.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: She was um really wanted to expand into uh South America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, um, places like that.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so she did try very hard to have not only um racially and age diversity, but also people from different countries as part of her organization.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think that was a big deal in the makeup world because I think for a long time um there wasn't a variety of skin tones.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: It was white women.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: So that's that's revolutionary in the makeup world, I imagine.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Especially in the 60s and 70s, right?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: When when she was first being successful.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so uh you want to just take a guess.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were talking about sort of the the pyramid scheme versus the MLM.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: There were standards that you had to meet in order to be a uh Mary Kay Cosmetics uh representative, um, beauty pro beauty consultant or independent beauty consultant, and take a guess of what your sales had to be within a month to stay active.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man, to stay active.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean to stay just to stay active, meaning they keep sending you product.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, you bought the product, right?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So um so but yeah, you you were still active within the organization.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they they wouldn't just let you sign up and never buy anything or never sell anything and just stay as a you know be listed on the website and go to the conventions and everything.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, a hundred bucks a month?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: 225.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Which I don't think is that bad, honestly.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean how many units is that though?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is it like yeah, I mean, if they're twenty dollars each, maybe ten.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Every month, I mean, that's that's a job for sure.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean uh yeah, I don't know, I don't know from if that's a if that's a high barrier or a low barrier, but it seemed kind of reasonable to me.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um except for where you you don't have like customers coming to you, you're constantly going out and trying to build you it's all business development.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, and it's interesting because as I searched more and more, I found Mary Kayout channels with with these independent beauty consultants.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: I found Mary Kay uh blogs and podcasts and um you know sponsorship at events like community events where people is are are maybe um setting up a booth at a farmer's market.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's all kinds of innovative ways that these women would get out into the into the world.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about it, today, you know, especially when COVID was going on and such, some of these events are virtual, right?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: They don't necessarily do all these events as quote unquote Tupperware parties like they used to be.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I say Tupperware because that was the famous Tupperware party.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_03: Do I get exclusivity at least on my block, though?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, how do I know that my neighbor's not going to sign up my neighborhood?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are there are regions within it.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they had rules and a pecking order, and I guess maybe if you were within the region of an existing uh consultant, you would have to work under that consultant for a period of time.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think they tried very hard to make it fair and make it easy to begin, but also reward people.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And speaking of rewarding people, that was one of her big philosophies was encouragement and rewards.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: She said that um every Monday at their executive level, they would recognize people out in the field who had done, you know, even if they had done something small, if it was a an improvement or it was their first time, or there was some reason that it was special that they had done this thing, they would nationally recognize people, you know, in Des Moines, Iowa, or in you know, in Tampa, Florida, or whatever.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: They would give shouts out to these people and make calls to them and and really try to encourage people um to be to be successful.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of that, of course, was good business, but I think also a part of it was just trying to create a culture of encouragement versus beatings.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they both they both work probably, you know, for different people.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: But man, um, and of course, you're probably gonna talk about this, but the ultimate, you know, prize was the one that everybody everyone wanted, you know.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Coming up, coming up right now, we we uh we're gonna talk about the pink Cadillacs.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that tradition began in 1969.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh first awarded to five of her independent beauty consultants, and they were given in 1969 a 1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now you've seen these Cadillacs, right?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: They were pretty gaudy.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'll tell you, I never when we moved to Texas, you kind of saw them a lot in the 80s in well, especially in Dallas and Houston, I think.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I say a lot.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: You probably saw them as often as you see Cybertrucks.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be like maybe one every two days.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, but there were enough around where you knew there was something going on, and nobody would.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even know if they were available to the non-Marrike public.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you were orderable.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: They were not.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, so I'll tell you about that.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, um, first of all, let's do a little history of Cadillac.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had a I had a misconception about the word Cadillac.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I thought it was a Native American word um of a tribe of Native Americans, but in looking it up, it it didn't shy with that.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know anything about the word Cadillac or where it came from?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I know there's a town called Cadillac, Michigan.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: I thought the town came from a Native American word, but um, but I know I know it's the town of Cadillac.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what I what I found again and again um against what I thought was that it was actually named after Detroit's founding father, the original settler in Detroit, who was a Frenchman named Antoine de la Mof Cadillac.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he um he was Detroit's founding French, uh founding father, he was French, and it was uh taken by Henry Leland in 1902 as the name of a car company.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: So Cadillac was not originally owned by GM, it was independent, and Cadillac was actually innovative in one big way.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: They are the first manufacturer to introduce the idea of interchangeable parts.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: So before that, with Ford and uh some of the early brands of cars, the parts were pretty much all custom.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Cadillac made the parts interchangeable between their not only the same model, but between different models.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they might have the same headlight and three different models of car, and that was something innovative that Cadillac did.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it was named after.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, have you ever heard of this Antoine de la Molf Cadillac?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're from Michigan.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: No, like I said, I just knew of Cadillac, Michigan.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know that.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I yeah.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think I moved before we'd got Michigan history, and then I moved after Texas you guys got Texas history, so I didn't get either.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, yeah.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: You need to go back and redo that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Ignorant, completely ignorant.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's sixth grade.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was sixth grade in Texas.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um the color of the pink actually was a uh a makeup color that um that Mary Kay had called mountain laurel.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that pink color was uh was a makeup color for blush that came in one of the Mary Kay compacts, and she liked it so much that she got her own Cadillac painted that color in 1967, and that's when she decided that this would be a statement piece for her top people.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: So she went ahead and uh started giving these out in 1969.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: She gave out the next year's model.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was what they called a grand achiever within the organization.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: So this was a level of sales where they had sold uh$18,000 worth of products in four months.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: And let's just say, too, on Cadillacs, in the 1960s, there weren't a lot of people running around in in um inner you know foreign cars.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, Cadillacs were more common.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: They were the one there was no Lexus or Acura.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: No, and there was like Cadillac was the luxury car.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you were driving around in a Cadillac, that means that you made it.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: And the 67 Cadillac that you mentioned, you know, that was the one she had, that's iconic, right?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's the one that you think of when you think of you know the the Cadillac, the kind of the oh yeah, yeah.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then you throw pink on top of that.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's you can't, you're not a wallflower.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: You are saying I'm somebody.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and these folks, I think, appreciated that.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: It said that most of them would take the Cadillac, but you could also take a cash prize if you wanted.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't have to take the car.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was a two-year lease that the cars would be leased for, and then I guess um if you didn't keep if you if you didn't want to keep the car, uh you gave it back, but if you did want to keep it, you actually had to buy it or buy out the lease.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: So have you ever been to the Cadillac Ranch in uh Amarillo?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Where they're all dug in.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, I haven't.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is it is it just like 10 of them or something, or is it hundreds?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't know.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: I've never been out there.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: And um, but I don't know.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder if any of them are pink.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, like a Mary Kay with its nose in the dirt.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: If people don't know what we're talking about, it's this area where these Cadillacs are half buried, right?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the the front end or the back end is sticking up out of the ground.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: I I wonder though what became of all those pink Cadillacs.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they they they couldn't just be all just oh no.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, so so as I was looking this stuff up, um, there's a lot of them for sale on eBay.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can buy them.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you could definitely get one today if you wanted to with enough money.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you if you uh worked for a company that gave you a gaudy car um as a reward for doing such a great job, would you drive it?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Would you take it?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think that that's the appeal.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I mean, if I worked for Mary Kay and everybody knew that that was a symbol of success line, yeah.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, of course, I would drive that.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I think it attracted the type of person that would drive a pink Cadillac.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's that's yeah, yeah.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, again, it was it was the color was inspired by a makeup color, right?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: So what did they have to achieve to get that Cadillac?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um,$18,000 of sales in four months.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they had to maintain um a certain amount for a certain period of time after that.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but and and there was a limit to how much they could actually put in of their own money.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: So meaning$18,000 worth of sales, you you you had to have, I guess maybe it was um$14,000 that was actually sold and then another$4,000 that you bought with inventory or something like that.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: And the Cadillac itself probably cost$25,000 or$20,000 at the time.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I mean, you're practically buying the car anyways.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it might have cost$18,000 for all we know.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: This was uh the the 60s.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe maybe it was$18,000.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe that's the cost of the car.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna make it that, and uh but but you got to keep the money and the car in that case, right?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I would definitely, definitely um drive that.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think it'd be cool to drive today.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: I think it'd be cool to drive today.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: It would be a statement.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: It would be it would be a statement.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the the DNC mobile.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: So she, as I said, you know, she had these um quotes and she was she was pretty well known for being very involved and being very encouraging.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Part of that uh was reflected in a lot of awards that she won.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: She won the Horatio Alger Award, which I guess is a big deal for business groups.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievements.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: She was inducted into the U.S.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hall uh U.S.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Business Hall of Fame in 1996.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: She also had some charitable organizations, and two of them were very much directed at women.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: One was for domestic violence.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was not for it, it was against it.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one was to fight domestic violence, and one was to um find research, do research and find a cure for cancer that affected women.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: What year did she die?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: So she died in 2001.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um she was the chairman of Mary Kay Cosmetics until 87, and she uh was named Chairman Emeritas after that.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess she kind of had the honorarium for a long time.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then her son Richard took over the company, and now her grandson is the CEO of Mary Kay.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Men.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're in 37 countries.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and they have a annual sales.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um no, this this was actually in sorry, when she died in 2001, they were in 37 countries, 800,000 representatives, and annual sales of 200 million.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: They had some trouble in the 80s.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: They kind of um they had actually taken the company public in 1968, made her very wealthy, but then they took it private again in 1985 so that they could have more control over it.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Dell just did that a couple of years ago.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Dell was public and then went private again.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess that's a way through a leveraged buyout, you go back and buy a majority of the shares, and then you can do what you want without having to worry about what Wall Street thinks.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I got to go into her office about 25 years ago.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: In in Houston.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_03: In Dallas in Irving, Texas.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: Irving, Texas, okay.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it was right next to you remember the old cowboy stadium of the street.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_03: That was in Irving, Texas.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: And this office was right next to that.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: And in fact, she had I got to they were like, Do you want to see her office?
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: Do you want to see so I got to go into her office and Bibles?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: She had a gold toilet.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, really?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: And it was like really gold.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I mean, it could have been gold plated or solid gold, I don't know, but it was really gold.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, it wasn't just like copper or brass, not spray pillars, definitely gold.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it overlooked the stadium.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like you could see, it was high enough up where you could see into the hole in the roof of the stadium.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: Was it a was it a working toilet?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, it wasn't a pretend toilet.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then and the reason I asked you when she died was because I think it was right around that.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_03: I it was like maybe 1999, 2000, um, maybe 2001.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: It was right right in that in that time frame.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but um when you say Mary Kay, that's the first thing I think of is that gold toilet um that she had, which you love to hear, right?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like yeah, you'd be disappointed if she didn't have a gold toilet, right?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh in in in my research, I did not hear about the gold toilet in her office, but I did hear that her her office is exactly as she left it, is what they say, right?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Was that your experience?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Did it look like it had been pretty much somebody was working there?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, see, I don't know if that was, I mean, it was the end of her life.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why why were you in Mary Kay's office?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: What was that all about?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_03: Don't worry about that.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, all right.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: A little mystery.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not gonna give away all my secrets here.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure this isn't just a fever dream that you had?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or it's kind of like when I read out thought I wrote on the Goodyear blimp.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, did I really do that?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to be.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's very similar to that story.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: I barely remember.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have pictures of yourself in Mary?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: So this would have been before camera phones.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_03: There were cameras about it.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, definitely.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but I didn't walk around with one.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_03: Did you have a sketchbook?
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: A notepad, anything.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: So it's so much like your Goodyear Bib story, really.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's something I vaguely remember, but I distinct like I vaguely like I kind of remember that it happened, but to the extent it did happen, I totally remember that gold toilet.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_03: The gold toilet.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think it was a dream.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: She is she died November 22nd, 2001, and she is buried in uh Memorial Park Cemetery, Sparkman Hillcrest in Dallas.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we we could potentially uh go go see her grave if we wanted to.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: We could there's uh add it to the list.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, there's there's about 120 graves.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, some of them might be not might be hard to find, but but some of them would be pretty easy.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, um what what do you think?
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think I have a lot more respect for her after doing a little research as far as her motivation to create opportunities for women, however that turned out, and I I know there's always gonna be people in your organization that feel like they've been treated unfairly, and there are gonna people be people who were treated unfairly, you know, where that's that's not that's not untrue.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think that ultimately her goal to make a better workplace for the woman and opportunities for independent contractors to have their own businesses, I think it was a pretty noble goal.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think too, and in in with that business model, I think they kind of pitch it as man, this is practically passive income.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: You're you barely have to do anything, you just sell to your friends, but that's not how you make the big money, right?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: In order to make the big money and get the Cadillac, you have to treat it like a like any other job, and you probably have to work 40 to 60 hours a week, and you probably have to keep spreadsheets, and you probably have to hustle and do your business development, and you could make good money doing it, but then it's like any other job, you know.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: You're probably what they sell you is the promise that if you do this the right way, your possibilities are unlimited, and that's the problem with a lot of these marketing organizations is that technically that is true, but you're basically working harder than you would in a traditional job in order to get there.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: But all those people are legit.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they're not made up, they're real people.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but that's the same with real estate, that's the same with herbal life and all this stuff.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's podcasting.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, you can work like crazy, man, but uh the big money comes to those who work the hardest at that marketing stuff.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: What what season are we on in our podcast?
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is this season three?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is season four.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is it?
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and uh how many years is it gonna take for us to make a dime?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, we put it we put it all back into the show.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: We put so we don't we we don't spend it all it all is zero at this point.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_03: So uh that's not true.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: We have Patreon, don't say that because then our Patreon subscribers will think that their money's not going towards anything.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we do want to say thank you.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to our Patreon subscribers, and we appreciate you because you do help offset the cost of hosting our Buzz Sprout account, which is like twenty five bucks a month.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we are gonna get t shirts made.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say it right here in front of everyone.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a fan of the show, email us, not at dirtnap city.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let us know how much you're a fan.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe, just maybe, especially if you're a Patreon support you, you'll get a t-shirt.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: So let's look at real quick.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: So eighteen.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: Eighteen thousand dollars.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_03: Twenty twenty-five money.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: Eighteen thousand dollars.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: About a hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_03: If you contribute a hundred and sixty thousand dollars to our Patreon account, we'll give you a pink Cadillac.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'll just say that right now.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'll do it.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: Alex has two.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: So he's gonna give you a I'll give you a we will give you a paint Cadillac with the dirt nap city emblazoned on the back.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: Our logo.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um I'm I'm gonna make good enough promise.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_03: If you deposit 160,000 in our Patreon account, you will get a paint Cadillac.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um and we'll throw in some makeup.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks everybody.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: We love you, and uh go out and do something good in the world.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: She walked the plains of Texas away with a dream so big it touched the sky, sparkle in her eye, fire in her soul.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: She built a kingdom out of pink and gold.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh Mary Kay You paid the way with the grace You did the day pink Cadillacs rolling down the street, you made the world more beautiful, so sweet She told the women You can ride faith in your heart stars in your eyes She gave the wheel She gave the most She gave the wind the angel see the gold and stuff falling down the street of the fuck you did go so sweet faded the shades of care for the women for the women for the fish of the same.