Glenn W. Turner

Hey friends 👋,

Slow week for writing. I'm still making progress, but my writing sessions were cut short a few times by some early work meetings.

Have you heard of Glenn W. Turner? He was a household name and a highly successful entrepreneur in the 1960s and 1970s. He made his first fortune starting over 40 businesses selling home goods and high end cosmetics. Then, he pioneered the self-help industry, gave talks, sold video lectures, and basically became the first Tony Robbins.

And then, he went to prison.

Turns out Turner was not only a pioneer of the self-help industry, but also multi-level marketing. His company, Koscot Interplanetary, Inc. (yes, that's the real name), "sold cosmetics" but in reality convinced people to buy into the company as "distributors" and recruit others in order to become "supervisors" and "partners".

In 1980, after a long series of legal proceedings, Turner was convicted of running a pyramid scheme and spent 7 years in prison. When he got out, he continued to give motivational speeches. The phrase that he lived by and repeated to entrepreneurs, sales people, and those in business until he died in 2020:

"Fake it 'til you make it".