JM Ocean Avenue: Why did Ocean Avenue merge with a suspect scheme out of China called JM International?

Ocean Avenue *was* a nutritional supplement based MLM that started in roughly 2012. After a rough tossle with Visalus due to some people jumping ship, which culminated apparently with a theft of laptop from Ocean Avenue office in 2013, Ocean Avenue apparently merged with a Chinese company called JM International in 2014, according to a member:

OK JM International did a take over of Ocean Avenue back in 2014.
JMOA is part of Joy May who is owned by Joe Zhou, Bruce Fang and Jackie Zhang – JMOA is a $2 Billion company based out of china.
The Ocean Avenue managment stayed after the take over but it was not a happy merger and although Hop Rocket was initially going to be part of JMOA, it was decided that the US team would relinquish their interest in JMOA and everyone in the US office wanted to move to Hop Rocket which soft launched just 1 week ago.

Comment posted by Dottie Lotto on 6-AUG-2015

But who/what is JM International? Seems all we know are some Americanized names, and "it's out of China". (The 2 billion can't be trusted as it's unclear it's revenue, profit, products sold, cumulative or single year, etc.)

So who is JM International? If you search for JM International, , you will find ONLY "JMOA" (JM Ocean Avenue). In fact, you can't even find what JM stands for.

What's really interesting is how the "board of directors" change depending on which site you access, as you can't tell which is official and which is not. Some pages include Tim Richerson and Fred Ninow, others included two other Chinese names (Peter Li and Gary Ren).

However, after a bit of searching, I found an alternate domain, jmtop.com, which appears also to be a global corporate site. However, what's REALLY interesting is for a company allegedly started in China, it has NO CHINESE WEBSITE. It has Hong Kong and Taiwan, but none for Mainland China.

JM Ocean Avenue "select country" page as of 7-AUG-2015 ... No China? 

Next stop... Youtube, as I need to find the CHINESE name of this allegedly Chinese company, so I can research it on Chinese media. Searching for "JM International" found an alleged official channel, and following videos:

So we now know that the Chinese name for JM International is 中脉国际

So what does the Chinese Media Say about them?

MLM Myth: How Mary Kay Ash incorporated the Bumblebee Myth into company culture

A bit of link surfing on bad arguments brought me to an unexpected link... the Bumble Bee Myth, and its link to Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics.

Diamond Bumblebee
pin award (photo credit:
Mary Kay Website)

Mary Kay Ash was quoted saying "Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying any way." She told the story in 1970 Seminar, where she started presenting the top sellers with the diamond bumblebee pin. (see right)

The problem is there had been NO physicist, scientists, or aerodynamicist that ever claimed bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly. Folklorists and historians have been trying to track down this myth for decades. It's obviously bull****, since we see bees fly every day.

People have "heard" of this myth, as it was variously attributed to various "leaders" (who repeat the bull****), various scientists (never authenticated), and celebrities / politicians (such as Mitt Romney).  Nobody can find the actual claim, paper, quote, or whatever. The closest historians can get was a single sentence in an old etymologist book Le Vol des Insectes (1934) by Antoine Magnan, where he claimed an assistant told him insect flight is impossible given law of air resistance. Bumble bee was NOT mentioned.

Mary Kay Ash
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In other words, this is another myth, perpetuated by MLM. It is not real.

But it is necessary to create a cult of personality, where myth is built up around the leader of the cult through heroization / idolization of the leader, often by enforcing a dress code and perpetuating ideological myths.

And the bumblebee myth is one of them. It is positive thinking mumbo-jumbo, about how you should IGNORE other people's advice, by citing a myth of something nobody ever said.

There is no denying that Mary Kay Cosmetics is a personality cult that enforces a dress code. You didn't know that? NO PANTS in Mary Kay. Founder hated pants. Everybody must wear skirts. That's right, skirts only. NEVER wear pants to any Mary Kay function, or you're forever be ostracized as troublemaker. In fact, it's #2 of "14 Nevers" on a MK Checklist. Oh, there's even "get a new hairstyle". Really.

Control types of clothing and hairstyle is #4 on "Behavior Control", one of four pillars of cult mind control.

And misquoting statements and/or using them out of context from non-cult sources? #5b of Information Control, another pillar of cult mind control.

The Real Motivation: It's Magical Thinking

Motivation is a form of magical thinking in which you imagine that
your words can turn useless people into high achievers. 

http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-08-07