Marilyn Arnold went from being a single Mom with $135 to her name to being a Managing Partner for a fortune 65 company. She credits her success to having great managers who taught her different aspects of a business from prospecting, recruiting, client relationships, and helping people to achieve their wants and needs using the products and services that were offered. She helped develop and taught the Counselor Soft Sell method in the company.
During this time, she learned the importance of presentations while speaking at national company meetings, making training videos. Marilyn represented her company as a board member for the national board of Women in Insurance and Financial Services. Marilyn has always been active in non-profits ranging from daycare for protective services children to Go Red for Women, Delaware Valley Stroke Council and JDRF. She is a presentation coach for the Barnabas Group and a member of the marketplace leadership board for The Sending Project.
After retiring in 2011, she began her “Second Act” starting Marilyn Arnold Designs and Success By Design. In February of 2022 she merged Success By Design with Review Tube/CGI Communications teaching transformative social media.
She has been featured in numerous publications since her retirement including the book, The New Senior Woman, and the New York Times.
Marilyn lives with her husband, Larry in Lees Summit, Mo.
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-Transcript-
Brad: Welcome to In A World With Real Media. I’m your host, Brad Burrow. In this podcast, we’ll dive into the lives of the most successful people in business. We’ll learn how they overcame adversity, took advantage of opportunities and learned from their experiences. Learn from our experts. Get inspired, then go live your story. It’s in a world with real media.
Welcome to the In A World With Real Media Podcast, and I have a very special guest with me today, Marilyn Arnold. Marilyn, we met probably a year ago, you think something like that,
Marilyn Arnold: Probably maybe a year and a half
Brad: Ago. And with Joey, I think Joey through Joey and I introduced us. You have an amazing background, so just so you know, I was going to tell our listeners about some of your background. University of Missouri. Okay. Went to Mu, the big thing. So you were at Lutheran Brotherhood, is that what it was called? What was that exactly?
Marilyn Arnold: Lutheran Brotherhood was what they call a not for-profit. And we worked strictly with members of the Lutheran Church.
Brad: Okay. And so from there, you went to New York Life, is that correct? Yes. Yes. So, alright, so I want to get into that at some point here, but what a jump. And then today, so you’ve retired from New York Life and you’ve got, well, success is Marilyn Arnold Designs, what’s on your LinkedIn page, but what is the actual name?
Marilyn Arnold: Okay. Now I call my company Success by Design. Marilyn Arnold Designs was another company that I started, a small company that I started right after I retired.
Brad: Okay. And that’s what we see up here, your website. So Carly, switching this for us. So thank you Carly, for showing that. I want to get into your career a little bit. You have a very amazing career to go from Lutheran Brotherhood to New York Life. How did that happen? That’s amazing.
Marilyn Arnold: Well, it’s an interesting story. I was working for Lutheran Brotherhood as an associate general agent, which meant that I did recruiting and training and New York Life was going through a time when they needed to recruit managers outside of the company. They found my name, I’m sure it wasn’t difficult. And I had a recruiter that called me every six weeks for two years.
Brad: Is that
Marilyn Arnold: Right? Before I
Brad: Would How did they find you?
Marilyn Arnold: I don’t know. Well, I do two. They were hiring a lot of people away from other companies. And there was one of my colleagues in Chicago who had gone to New York Life a year before I did. And I’m sure that that’s where they found my name. Or they could have found it on the internet looking at the different websites or it’s really difficult, or someone else could have referred me.
Brad: So they found you and they just started
Marilyn Arnold: Coming after you? Yeah, we got to be friends. Well, it was so funny because, and I wish I remember the Critter’s name and I, it was so funny because we got to be friends and I was calling him, the recruiter call me. Yeah. He became president. I call and I call him and give him referrals. This was a funny part because people that I knew were leaving I
Brad: Him, you should call this person, huh?
Marilyn Arnold: Yeah, yeah, I did. I really did. Yeah. Well, here again, it’s kind of interesting. I asked for a 7% raise. I was doing a lot of things, recruiting and the training. I had gotten my series seven. So I was also doing the quarterly meetings for agents that had a series six and series 63. And at the end of the year, I asked my boss, the general agent that I worked for, a 7% raise, and he told me he had to think about it. So he never answered me. So I went, we did, all of our training was done in Minneapolis, where the home offices were for Lutheran Brotherhood. I went to training in January, and you always learn more in the bar than you do in the classroom, right. I’m sitting here, wait
Brad: A second, this doesn’t feel right. I dunno.
Marilyn Arnold: No, I’m talking to the general agent from Phoenix, Arizona, and he tells me that my general agent had called him to ask him if he should give me a 7% raise. Is that right? It made me mad. It really did, because I just felt like I was not being valued. So I went home, I put together, I knew a resume. I put together my resume. This was back in 99, so I had to fax it to him. Nobody knew what a scanner was in. So I faxed him a resume and then I called him and I said, did you get it? And he says, yes, Marilyn. And he said, I didn’t think I’d ever get it. And I said, well, the circumstances change.
Brad: This was the recruiter. Yes.
Marilyn Arnold: So he put me in touch with one of the VPs from New York Life, and I interviewed with them in April, and I went to work for them in August of 1999.
Brad: It took from April to August to get
Marilyn Arnold: That. You don’t turn the Titanic around quicker, but yeah, it did. Well, they had to fill the managing partner position in Omaha, and that took some time. So they did that, and then they started looking for recruiters and interviewing
Brad: Recruiters. So from the time that August when we started with New York Life, tell me about your progression through moving up in the company because you become managing partner. Yeah,
Marilyn Arnold: I did. I was very blessed and that I was a pretty good recruiter. And that’s the name of the game. If you wanted to be promoted, it was based on your recruiting acumen. And I was very, very blessed. And in 2003, I was the top recruiter in the West Central Zone, and I was number eight in New York Life.
Brad: Is that right? Yeah.
Marilyn Arnold: Yeah. Like I said, I was blessed to find good, I found good people and I worked very hard with them. A lot of them. Kind of interesting is, I was in Omaha at that time. I dunno if we said that or not, but I was in Omaha and I had agents all over the state of Nebraska and Western Iowa, and I worked with them. I did classroom, I didn’t do the classroom training because when I came to New York Life, they had a trainer. But I did the field training with all my agents. And so I drove all over and worked with my agents, and I was very, very blessed to have some really, really good people. And that’s what made it.
Brad: Do you think you’re just given the ability, wisdom wise, to recognize somebody that could be good at this? Or did you learn it or, I mean, obviously you’re very successful
Marilyn Arnold: At it. Yeah. Well, it’s kind of interesting. I hired a lot of people that didn’t
Brad: Make it. Oh, is that right? Is that just part of the deal? It’s just
Marilyn Arnold: Part of the deal it, it’s just part of the deal. But they just, well, if you hired 10, this was just numbers. The old ten three, one in sales, 10 calls, three appointments, one sale, pretty much the way it was in recruiting also, if you hired 10 people and you were very blessed, you would get two that would succeed. Very interesting. And if when you got dependent upon, if it was four or five in a year that were very successful, then you were promotable. Wow. So that’s how it worked. But no, I was very, very blessed. Just had some great people that I still stay in contact with.
Brad: Is that right? Oh,
Marilyn Arnold: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not real often, but every so often I hear from them or I reach out to them.
Brad: I think I mentioned to you, my middle son Bri, just passed the first test that you take at Fidelity. Yes. Would that be the series?
Marilyn Arnold: Probably the six. The six, okay. Yeah. And it may also, it’s changed. It may also be the six.
Brad: Six sounds right.
Marilyn Arnold: But it’s probably the six. And then he’ll probably have to take the 26.
Brad: Yeah. There’s a bunch of ’em that he’ll progress through and everything. But today I was really, really quite surprised at how they did that. I mean, they hired him without any experience. That’s who you want. And then they’re kind of grooming him. And
Marilyn Arnold: Now you always did better. Now. And I’ve hired people with experience, but you always do better when you hire someone who truly doesn’t know. We always said then they didn’t have any bad habits, but truly, you were better off to hire people that did not have any experience.
Brad: Wow. That’s amazing to me. I don’t know. So you would be looking a lot at probably college students or graduate.
Marilyn Arnold: Actually, my sweet spot was about 26 to 35. They had had experience usually in another job, another position. They were looking for something to do better, and that was really where I had my success.
Brad: So tell me about when you found out you’re going to be a partner.
Marilyn Arnold: A partner or a managing partner.
Brad: A managing partner. Yeah.
Marilyn Arnold: Well, I had decided I wasn’t going to ever get promoted. Well, first of all, I’m go back, I have to tell you about the blue cards.
Brad: We
Marilyn Arnold: Had someone come in, we would bring in outside speakers, usually motivational speakers, to talk to the agents once a month, once every two months, I can’t remember. But I invited this guy to come in and he had us take out a blue card, and he had us write on it what our goal was and write it as if it was happening. So I wrote, I am enjoying my first partner conference as a managing partner. And I wrote, it is March of, I have to think, 2004. And it happened. It happened. I would think about what I wanted my office to look like, how I would do things, and I would think about that when I drove to work.
And then it happened. But the funny part was I didn’t think that I was going to get promoted. I just didn’t feel like it. So I went to my managing partner. I was not trying to bully him or threaten him or anything. I just said to him, I just said, if I’m not managing partner material, you need to tell me. I need to know, because then I need to go and figure out where I fit. If I’m not a fit here, then I need to go somewhere else. That was in January. I dunno if I scared him or what, but in February they made me the offer.
Brad: Is that right?
Marilyn Arnold: Yeah. Yeah. They made the offer. And that was interesting because I went from Omaha, Nebraska to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and everybody says, oh, that must have been a culture shock. And I think you have no idea. You have absolutely no idea. And we always prided ourselves on the offices. New York Life is known for their beautiful
Brad: Offices.
Marilyn Arnold: Well, I walked into this one and Brad, it was a dump. It was absolutely a dump. And I thought, oh, dear Lord, what have I done? And I thought, okay, the only thing you have to recruit to is you. And that’s what I did. That’s what, and then they did. We did in the year, the office was remodeled and upgraded and things. But just to walk through that door and look at that, and it’s like, I don’t believe this. What happened here?
Brad: What have I done?
Marilyn Arnold: What have I done? That’s what I thought, dear Lord, what have I done? Yeah.
Brad: Well, so 11 years. Yeah, you’re there 11 years.
Marilyn Arnold: 11 years.
Brad: Yeah. That’s amazing.
Marilyn Arnold: Yeah. Yeah, it is. Because before I came, there had been five managing partners before me, and none of them had lasted more than two years.
Brad: Huh. Was it like a culture thing that was happening there? Yeah,
Marilyn Arnold: It was
Brad: Difficult. So you were able to turn that around?
Marilyn Arnold: I was able to recruit, and I’m not so sure I ever turned anything around as far as existing people were. However, I did recruit some good people. And that really, here again, it all goes back to recruiting. That’s what it’s about.
Brad: So one thing I’m really interested in all of this is you were talking about the vision of being successful, and a lot of people believe that you can really forge your way through and your future by thinking, believing that good things are going to happen and seeing yourself. And that happened to you. It
Marilyn Arnold: Did happen to me.
Brad: So what would you say to that? I would say, and then tie that into faith. Your faith is
Marilyn Arnold: So strong.
Brad: Yeah.
Marilyn Arnold: Well, when things were not moving the way I thought they needed to be moving for a promotion, I prayed about it. Of course, Larry and I prayed, Larry and I prayed about it, and Larry told me he’s great. One of his best good expressions is put your gages on and go to work. So if I would get down and didn’t think, he’d say, put your galas on and go to work, which is usually what I did, which means I don’t want to hear about this. You just need to go work it off or something. But yeah, no, I did. I prayed about it, and I felt like, Lord, where you’re sending me what I’m supposed to do, and if this doesn’t work, then, and quite honestly, I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in the blue cards. I had a lot more faith in the Lord than I did the blue cards, but I did. I just wrote it on that blue card, and I looked at it every day, and I did that for a year, and it was amazing. But God gave us brains, and he also gave us the ability to have joy.
Brad: And
Marilyn Arnold: It doesn’t make any difference what you do. You find joy in what you do, and that’s what pleases him.
Brad: That’s hard to do sometimes, isn’t it? It’s very
Marilyn Arnold: Hard to do. Yeah. It’s very, very hard,
Brad: Especially if you’re a driven person and you’re really wanting to achieve something. And I get narrowed in and focused in and lose sight of everything around me.
Marilyn Arnold: But I also had to continue to work with the people that were depending on me
That, like I told you, I have good people. I worked with them. And that keeps me going. I’ll have to tell you a story. It’s kind of funny. When I was a partner in Omaha, our regional vice president came to visit, and of course, he’s looking through my numbers, and there’s an agent there that doesn’t have very good numbers, and he’s looking, he says, how come this person is still here, Marilyn? And I said, well, I said, there’s something about this person that I believe in that I believe they’ll make it. He says, okay, this is in front of all the staff. Oh, my really? Says, okay, Marilyn. He says, I’m going to bet you a thousand dollars that it doesn’t happen. Now, I didn’t have a thousand bucks to bet with him, but of course, I couldn’t say no, I couldn’t do that. So I said, okay.
After the meeting, he came into my office and he said, I won’t bet you a thousand, but he says, I’ll bet you a hundred. I said, you’re on, you’re on. He did not realize how important that person was for me, because it was a $10,000 bonus if that person made it. And they did. They did. And worked very hard and focused very hard and made it. So we’re at an awards banquet first of the year after that, of course, was in December, because we worked off of the calendar year in January. We had an awards banquet. And I go up to him and I said, I don’t know if you remember this or not, but I told him about it. He says, no, I don’t remember it, but he says, if I owe you, I owe you. Well, another friend of mine, managing partner, she was standing there and she says, I think you should give this to Marilyn in front of everybody. So he
Brad: Did. Is that
Marilyn Arnold: Yes, yes. He gave me my a hundred dollars in front of everybody.
Brad: Even the person that you were betting about? Yeah. Oh
Marilyn Arnold: My gosh. No, no. This was just managers. No, no, this was just managers. Oh, I
Brad: Got you. Yeah.
Marilyn Arnold: Yeah. That
Brad: Would’ve been
Marilyn Arnold: Interesting. But I would’ve felt bad. Well, I don’t think it would’ve been so bad, but
Brad: You probably fought for that person. Mean obviously you
Marilyn Arnold: Did. Oh, I did. I did. And I worked extra. And this person worked weekends. She worked Sundays and Saturdays. I mean, she worked, I mean, worked hard in order to get this done.
Brad: Yeah. What a great story. Well, I want to switch gears a little bit. So I want to talk about, and you’ve started a podcast, and I think you’ve done maybe 10 or 11 episodes that are going to be released starting to release here soon. Yes. Why start a podcast?
Marilyn Arnold: Well, I am one of the partners in Barnabas Group, and I know you also are a partner in Barnabas
Brad: Group. We need to talk about Barnabas Group too, and what that is.
Marilyn Arnold: And one of the things that I looked at was how do we give, how does Barnabas Group continue to give value? Because we choose our ministries to do their presentations. And I had had some feedback from different ministries that I had worked with as their presentation coach that they weren’t getting much afterwards. So I went to our managing partner, and I suggested to him, I said, I feel like if we can have a podcast and we can interview these people, they’re going to see that that’s a value added from us as Barnabas Group. And he agreed with me. He said, yes. He said, I think that’s a good idea. And I’ve done a lot of speaking. I’ve done a lot of videos, and I have no fear. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy it and thoroughly enjoyed talking to people. So that’s when it all started, and you were so magnanimous with us to do what to help us. You’ve helped us. So I just felt like all the pieces fell into place.
Brad: You have some really strong gifts that God’s given you to be able to communicate with people. And we’ve seen that, Carly and I have talked about it, your ability to help people feel comfortable. I mean, if you look back at your career, that’s kind of what you did every day. It
Marilyn Arnold: Is what I did every
Brad: Day. Yes. It’s like, come work with us. Yeah. So how’s that been like for you? I mean, people are going to see the podcast soon, but what’s that been like? Just interviewing people and you’re really getting some incredible stories out
Marilyn Arnold: There. It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. And when I chose the name for my podcast with the least of these, that I took it from Matthew chapter 25, that if you’ve done it unto the least of these, this is what Jesus told us, you’ve done it to me. And I see those people that do ministries, the people that do the pro bono work, everything that’s done, I see them as working with the least of these. And when you hear the stories, you hear all of them. And there’s so many stories. And I meet probably two to three people a week that I want to interview.
And they’ve just got such amazing stories. So if there are people out there that would think, okay, either that’s me, and I know I can do this, I can change, I can do this. Or the other thing that I would like to is our country. There are people, the majority of the people in our country have no idea what is going on in this city, what’s going on in this country, what’s going on in the world. They have absolutely no clue. And I want them to see what is out there, what the need is. And I had a friend I went to church with in Jersey, and she always said, there’s three ways you can help. You can pay, you can pray, or you can play. So if you are not able to participate something physically, if you’re not able to go and help Brian Hughes feed the homeless, or you’re not able to do something at Relentless Pursuit or something at re hope, then alright, then give us some money and pray for us or just pray for us, that’s okay. But what I’ve found is that I want to leave my family, my children, and my grandchildren. I want them to understand what the important part of life is.
Brad: So let’s talk about Barnabas. You’re very involved in Barnabas Group. What is it? Tell us a little bit about some of the amazing things that they’re doing.
Marilyn Arnold: Okay. Well, when I first heard of Barnabas, it’ll be, well, actually four years ago this month, and met with George Commons, who was the managing partner who was, it was just starting up. He had just moved here. The best way that I can describe Barnabas is it’s like a Christian shark tank. All of us have watched Shark Tank and we know how people come out. They do their presentation and to a group of people. The only thing different with us with Barnabas is the ministry cannot ask for money. They can ask for help. In fact, they have what they call their asks, and those are the things that they need, that they need help with. And after that, then we have breakout groups. And if you’re in the audience, you’re one of the partners and you’re interested in, you’re interested in one of the ministries, you go to their breakout group to learn more.
And so many times people will say, oh, I can help with that. I can help with that. I know someone who does this. And there’s a great example that we had a while back was that I brought up Brian Hughes with the Casey Dream Center. Brian needed storage. He needed 5,000 square feet of storage for food that he had coming in that were canned goods and things like that. And so he called George and George put it out on an email. Well, a gentleman called George, he had a warehouse of 10,000 square feet that he only needed 5,000. Is that right? Yes.
Brad: Yes. Funny how that works
Marilyn Arnold: Is it, isn’t that funny how that works? Wow. So yeah, when you see that and you see people coming together, it’s really gotten to be a family. We really are. And so many people have done so many wonderful things. I know that one of the people I interviewed was Andrew Spiker. Andrew is an attorney, did a pro bono case for a survivor of human trafficking and got her entire record expunged because I don’t know how many people know this, but if you are arrested for prostitution in the state of Missouri, that’s a felony. And if it’s a felony, you can’t get a driver’s license. You can’t get Medicaid, you can’t get a job, you can’t do anything. And this person, she had come so far, but she still had her record. Andrew worked on that for four years, and he got it all expunged.
Brad: That is amazing. Isn’t that a
Marilyn Arnold: Great story?
Brad: Yeah, that is amazing.
Marilyn Arnold: It’s just such an amazing, amazing story.
Brad: The thing about Barnabas that really strikes me, when people get into ministry, they feel called God’s working on them to do something amazing, but they really don’t have the skillset to run an organization. Most of them say that’s true. That’s true.
Marilyn Arnold: No. And they will admit that they’re
Brad: Not saying anything. Exactly. Exactly. But they still feel so called and so driven to do it and being able to provide advice and resources. And when I say resources, that somebody that knows maybe an accountant or marketing or whatever it might be, that’s an amazing thing that about every ministry needs. Yes.
Marilyn Arnold: We can’t all be missionaries. We can’t all be pastors. And I know that I had felt in my life a lot of times because I wasn’t that I wasn’t doing what God wanted. That is like, is this what God wants me to do? And I’m here and I’m working, and I feel like I’m helping people, always wanted to help people, whatever I did and I didn’t. It’s like, okay. And then after the Barnabas group, and then of course we talk about our talents, and God talks about the things that we can do that maybe someone else can’t do. And it’s like Barnaba came together. We are not one denomination. We are a whole group of different people from different walks of life that want to help, that we need to do good. And it’s great. And I don’t know if you know this or not, but I learned last week, we are the fastest growing Barnabas group in the country. Oh,
Brad: Is that right? Yes. Because national, A
Marilyn Arnold: National organization. Yeah, it’s a national organization. That’s correct. And we are the newest and we are the fastest growing.
Brad: Wow. George has done a good job. He’s a good networker.
Marilyn Arnold: Oh, he’s great. I thought I was good until I met him.
Brad: Do you know who introduced me to George?
Marilyn Arnold: No, I don’t.
Brad: Joey.
Marilyn Arnold: Well, sure, that makes sense. That makes sense. Well, there’s a connection there between George and Joey. I’m not sure, but I know they’re really good friends. And I’m not sure the connection, but I can see that. I can totally see that.
Brad: So talk a little bit about human trafficking. I feel like you’ve kind of focused in maybe a little bit on that problem.
Marilyn Arnold: Yes. It’s a huge problem,
Brad: Especially in Kansas City. In
Marilyn Arnold: Kansas City, believe it or
Brad: Not,
Marilyn Arnold: Missouri is number four. We are number one for our football team, but we’re number four for human trafficking.
Brad: Why do you think that is?
Marilyn Arnold: Because of the highway system and because you can come to Kansas City, you can go anywhere, you can go south, you can go to Dallas, you can go to Houston, you can go north, you can go to Denver, you can go to San Francisco. Far enough, Minneapolis, Chicago. So I believe that’s the reason. And yes, I have learned a lot. I have learned about, and in fact, I’m using the word prostitution today, but I normally don’t use that because I don’t like that word. I believe more it’s called trafficker or being trafficked, because that’s what, do you really think that a 14-year-old girl wants to have 12 sexual encounters in a day, seven days a week? I don’t. No, I don’t. And there’s so many things that can be held over their heads, and it doesn’t have to be someone we think, well, it’s someone that they’re poor. They’re down. And that’s true. That’s true. But it’s more, it’s someone who doesn’t feel like they belong if they have a family issue. Is there a single mom? Is there a boyfriend? And 87% of the children, and I call them children because most of them are 13 and 14 years old girls and boys, the children have been abused by a parent or by the boyfriend of a parent. And there are children that have been sold by their family for drugs.
Brad: That’s crazy.
Marilyn Arnold: It’s awful. But I read, and I would highly recommend, if you haven’t read Christine McDonald’s book, cry Purple. You need to read it because she talks about exactly what happened to her. I know another lady, she’s actually one of our trainees for human trafficking training center, and she came from a middle class, upper middle class family. She was quiet. They look for the quiet ones, friends that we have here in town. Their granddaughter was almost trafficked by a foreign exchange student who come to find out wasn’t really a foreign exchange student. She was going to run off to Syria and marry him. Oh my goodness. It was horrible. Her dad, her dad slept. In fact, I don’t think he slept. He had a gun. He got a gun. He carried it with him at all times. They had to watch her because she didn’t believe them, and she would sneak out of the house. I mean, it was bad. And praise God, they found out about it and they were able to head it off. So it really doesn’t make any difference how much money you’ve got. The difference is whether or not that child feels loved and wanted. That’s the
Brad: Difference. How do we solve it? Is it an educational issue with parents? Is it, I mean, obviously if you grow up in an abusive environment, probably not going to be able to impact the parents of that child.
Marilyn Arnold: What you have to do is you have to train the police. When I first started working with human trafficking, I could not believe how little training the police officers all over this country in Canada, because we’re in too all over this country that have had no training. All they know to do is they pick up the girl or the young boy, they take them to jail, the pimp comes, gets them out, and everybody goes back on their way. So what we do, and Dan does this, Dan Nash does it so well, is we teach the police officers how to identify the human trafficking for one thing. And second of all, we teach them how to talk with the victims. First of all, they don’t think they’re victims. They will not say that they’re victims.
Brad: Think they’re criminals, basically.
Marilyn Arnold: Right. Well, I don’t know what they think they are. I’m not sure they think they’re anything, but I mean, the situation, they may be, they get them addicted to drugs sometimes. These women, these girls, they have children, and the pimp keeps the kids. So the mother goes out and she does what she has to do because she’s afraid she’s going to lose her children. She’s afraid they could be killed. But it’s a matter of learning for the police. And it’s also a matter for us to watch. And you will get to the point where you can figure it out. The circumstances.
Brad: Tell me some things you would look for. What word would that be?
Marilyn Arnold: Okay, I’ll give you a story. This happened right here, lady. She went in Starbucks to get coffee, and there’s a young girl sitting at a table. She’s got on sweatpants and a sweatshirt and high heels. Now, I don’t know too many people that go to Starbucks and wear their high heels. Kidding With her sweatpants, right? The lady goes over and she sits down and she says, can I help you? And the girl just opened up and she said, yes. She said, I’m running away, but I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do. And so this woman, she was able to contact someone, and then they ended up getting her and being able to take her to a safe place. So that’s one story. So be aware, and these are the things that have happened to me. Larry and I were in St.
Louis and we were staying at a hotel not very far from the airport, which is also, that’s one of the top places, is the airport. We were staying and we’re going out, going to dinner. And I see that there is this young girl standing in the parking lot on her phone. She’s dressed, dressed up really well, the high heels, the dress, the whole lots of makeup. And when we walked around into the parking lot, here’s this car. It’s a black car. It’s got black windows, you can’t see into it. And it’s got a big engine. He’s revving the engine. Okay. He’s revving. Revving the engine. And I guess he must’ve seen Larry and I looking around and kind of wondering, that was a signal he took off. Yeah, he took off. But she was on her phone. I’m sure she was calling or answering men that wanted to make a date with her, so to speak.
But yeah, just be aware of your, and the other thing we don’t think about so much are the illicit massage parlors and even the nail salons. We were on vacation. My husband’s from Iowa, and we were on vacation at Lake Okoboji, Iowa. And I went to get my nails done. So I wore in, and here are these ladies, these girls, and in the back, there’s this woman, and I mean, she’s frowning and she’s standing there and she’s got her arms crossed. And the woman, I mean, you can tell they’re afraid of her. And I walked out the door and I told Larry, I said, that’s an illicit, those are girls that are working off labor. They’re working there to pay off. Because generally what happens is the families send their daughters, they think their daughters are coming here to get great jobs, to be movie stars to whatever.
And then when the girls get here, they have to work off their, whatever. It costs thousands and thousands of dollars, which they probably never work off, never get it all paid for. And the massage parlors are just horrible. And the way, it’s kind of funny here, again, I didn’t have this story happen to me, but I had someone tell me, one of our trainers told me about how she’s been in law enforcement. And she and a guy, it was a male officer, they were undercover. They were wearing regular street clothes. And she went into this massage parlor. And when she got in there, it was like, oh, no, no. We close it. We close it. We don’t have nothing for you today. So she leaves, well, the guy goes in, all right. Oh, yes, we’ve got plenty of room for you. This is what you want. This is how much it costs, yada, yada. So that was an illicit, that was an illicit massage parlor. And they’re all over the place.
Brad: So do you think education is
Marilyn Arnold: Well, we have to be educated. Yes. We
Brad: Start the police to
Marilyn Arnold: Talk out. We start with the police. Now, what I’m pleased to see is we did a training last week in Lee Summit because the Jackson County Sheriff is requiring all of his deputies to be trained by the end of the year. Oh,
Brad: Good.
Marilyn Arnold: And we had parole officers there, and we actually had start teachers. Is that right? And I was so happy to see them, because you think about the children, because Head Start is a program for children of low income, low income. It’s a low income program. So you know that there’s a possibility that there could be kids that are being trafficked, that are being abused. And now the teachers, they’re learning how to identify this. So that’s what it’s going to take. It’s just going to take people, it’s going to take parents opening up their eyes, and it’s going to take people not living in their silos, in their bubble. That’s what I call it. I call it their bubble.
Brad: Dan Nash. Yes. I mean, he has an organization that’s helping in this as well. Is that correct? Me?
Marilyn Arnold: That’s who I’m, I’m working with.
Brad: I’m working with, tell me about
Marilyn Arnold: That. The Human Trafficking Training Center. Yeah. Okay. This is pretty cool. I started with them. I met through Barnabas. I met them. And at that time, Dan and his partner, Allison Phillips, they started the human trafficking training center to train the police. They had both been on the governor’s task force for human trafficking for the state of Missouri. In fact, Allison, she was the director, and then Dan, he was a detective. He was in charge of all of the human trafficking in the state of Missouri. He was also a highway patrolman. He was 27 years as a highway patrolman. And they had seen, he probably really saw a lot. Oh my gosh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, he’s seen everything. There’s nothing that would ever surprise him. So they both had retired and wanted to continue to do something else. And especially Dan had seen what little, how the police didn’t know anything they needed.
They needed to be trained. And so he started calling people and talking to people that he knew and started training. And I mean, he has been approached by Interpol. He has been approached. Really? Yeah. He has been approached by the UK’s Scotland Yard. He’s been approached. He’s done a lot in Canada. And we’ve done training now in 27 states, hope to do more. We actually also, were watching for at the Super Bowl, money laundering, Dan, he will be going to probably both of the conventions, both the Democrats and the Republicans. And he’s going to be teaching at the Republican one and watching out, letting people know what’s out there. Because
Brad: Those are just magnets
Marilyn Arnold: For, oh my gosh, would you believe that the Super Bowl is the worst place for human trafficking? There’s more human trafficking that goes on at the Super Bowl and more money laundering than any place else in the world. Now, is that not wild? And of course, this year it was worse because it was
Brad: In Vegas. Vegas, yeah.
Marilyn Arnold: Well, and close to the border. Yeah. That’s a huge problem, is the people that are coming in through the border.
Brad: So I want to wrap up here pretty quick though. What can somebody do? Somebody hears this podcast and could they reach out to Dan’s organization? Where would they find them? Absolutely. Maybe Is it through Barnabas? I think, I don’t know what Barnabas, is it Barnabas Group?
Marilyn Arnold: Their website. What I would recommend that they do is go on httc.com and there’s contact information on there about how they can contact someone. They can contact Dan or they can contact me. I mean, I’m happy to have anyone give me a call or send me an email if they want to know how to help.
Brad: We’ll put that in the show notes, if that’s okay.
Marilyn Arnold: I have
Brad: Somebody to get a hold of you. Sure, that’s fine. That’ll be good. Well, so it’s kind of a somber way to end the podcast, but I’m really excited about your podcast. I mean, you have some really interesting people that are doing amazing things. That’s pretty cool.
Marilyn Arnold: And it is cool. And what, 90% of them, more than that, are all here in Kansas City and there’s more, oh my gosh. I met two people last night at a meeting that I went, that I went to.
Brad: Did you say, can you be on my podcast?
Marilyn Arnold: Absolutely. Absolutely. You need to get your story out there. People need to know your story.
Brad: Yeah, that’s right. And the podcast is called The Least of These, and it’s going to be on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, several of the big podcast formats. I know that because helping
Marilyn Arnold: You do
Brad: That in YouTube, so that’ll be good. Yes. Alright, so the last thing that we have to do is you have to give me your movie voice in a world with real media. So I’m just going to coach you a little bit. Okay. Okay. Tell me again what I need to say. So you have to get really close to the mic, and you have to say in a world. So you have to do it real breathy. Okay, here we go.
In a world
That’s awesome. Oh my gosh. Someday I’m going to put, I wish I had videos of that. That was really good though. That’s so cute. It’s so fun. We really appreciate everybody listening. Please feel free to actually subscribe to the podcast and share it. Anything we can do to get the word out about the human trafficking and all the things that are happening, we would love to be part of that solution. So thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you next time.
This has been In a World With Real Media. Thanks for joining us. And be sure to subscribe on iTunes and follow real media on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. So you never miss an episode.
This has been In a World with Real Media. Thanks for joining us and be sure to subscribe on iTunes and follow Real Media on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, so you never miss an episode..