Below is the response Laurie wrote AFTER the negative remarks and attack of her character by her old mentor Bill Gouldd was posted on his web over 2 years ago. She has not seen him or spoke to him in 10 years (April 2000)...but for his own personal benefit is attacking ironically the people who helped make him worth millions in the 90's. Complete opposite behavior of what he taught people to do....
Every attorney in the world has told Laurie to sue him for slander or at least get a cease and desist order for his attacks all over the internet, but Laurie is grateful for what Bill taught her 20 years ago and does not know who this man is today that has verbally attacked her and so many people that used to be in his life that helped him reach such levels of success for so many years. She will always love the Bill she once knew 20 years ago and be grateful to him for the business relationship and friendship they shared from 1988 to 2000....and prays and has faith that someday he will be too.
Laurie received an aggressive email from Bill in May of 2009 asking her to remove her response of his attacks due to their past friendship because people kept sending him emails, and she did...actually the same day, knowing Bill will do the same for her, but ironically Bill did not give her the same courtesy and kept his attack on his website and actually added Laurie's name to tag all of HIS websites and the video of his slandering her to promote himself and his website.
She is tired of explaining who someone is that she dedicated 12 years of her life to...... especially back over 10 years ago.
As for this blog, Laurie has made me promise if and when Bill decides to remove her name and any attacks from his website preciously or currently posted, that I immediately have to take off this post. Of course I have agreed.
Ironically as you will see in Laurie response (again written in January of 2008) only after Bill posted his websites attack of her...she will not attack this man back no matter how much of a loss this has been in her current business relationships now and since Jan 2008....
Laurie has moved on in her life loving what she is doing teaching people about the principals from her latest book and cd....."Great Principals to Live Your Life by" and taking care of her elderly father.
Written by Laurie Rubidge -January 2008
laurie rubidge and bill gouldd
This is a personal testimonial that I would have never felt a reason to make public, but it has come to my attention that some information has been shared on the internet that is shockingly sad and untrue and I am being incredibly misrepresented and it breaks my heart.
The reason for these facts is to clarify some things that have been recently said of my attitude and loyalty in a past relationship I had with one of my mentors that I was extremely dedicated to. No matter how mean he is I am not going to regret having the opportunity to have learned so many great things in my life from him.
(Thank-you for the countless amount of emails of support). BTW: I don't understand either- any of this either.
I was accused of "using intense language" to one of my past mentors and accused of "taking people from him." All of you that know the situation in 2000 when the company closed and the mentor I gave over 12 years of my life to, told me he signed an agreement to not work in the industry for 5 years, know this is not true. I needed to find the people a home who wanted to still work in the industry because he told us he couldn't.
Quick? to my past mentor- If you were allowed to start a company in 2000, and wanted to start a company in 2000 to take care of these people....why didn't you? That was the hardest thing I did in my life to take of a group that believe in you and the past company when you said it is over. So why didn't you? Now you show up after 8 years of a vacation lifestyle with your millions and your homes and somehow you are mad at us? Do you know how many had leases they had to pay for in the thousands per month and not have a company to do it with because it was shut down? Why didn't you try and help with the settlement you got? How many millions was it anyway?
This is so sad. I have let this go and I am quite sure many have too.
I pray to God that you truly were not this mean when I followed you for 12 years and convinced people to stay and follow you another 2. I refused to believe that Bill. Is there anyone in your entire life that you are proud of for being your student and paying you thousands or some of us tens of thousands that you taught? Or are you only proud when we made you money?
This is so incredibly sad. I will always love the man that I think you were. You can't steal that from me, no matter what you say or do.
By the way, I would like one person to document who, when, where, and ever that I told them personally to never work with Bill anytime in their life, just even one........by the way...don't ask me today!
Any?’s please email to laurie@laurierubidge.com, Again, thank-you for all your support from the countless that were there and know the truth.
I am sorry this is happening for all, 8 years later and to me it still does not make sense. The last person in my whole life that I thought would ever be unkind to me for all that I have done for over 10 years of my life.
Here is the truth:
I have had many mentors in my life since I was 22, one particular mentor had a large impact on my life up till the time I was 32.
I started working in his organization in 1988 in a company called NSA and followed him until 2000.
In 1997 many people in the organization wanted to create their own company and decided to break off and do their own thing, but many…not all did it in a very ugly way.
I personally couldn’t have imagined leaving someone who had helped us and taught us to become successful. I wouldn’t have ever imagined leaving the company. I don’t know everything but I know loyalty and I have been the most loyal person to whomever I have done business with my whole life.
I not only stayed with Bill out of ALL THE CURRENT LEADERS AT THAT TIME, but I dedicated the next 2 years of my life to rebuilding the company and all the damage that had been done by the confusion.
I have been told by many thru-out the years that because of my loyalty to stay when all other 18 top money earners left, it definitely helped in why we were even able to rebuild for the next 2 years.
One particular nasty person that did leave, personally I was VERY glad to see go, when he saw his company was failing after he left, I was told he decided to go to the federal government with lies to try to challenge the company and get us shut down, so the people would run to his company.
In August of 1999 I was about to start a training for 600 people in Las Vegas and I got a call from a company rep that the company had closed …I said what are you talking about?……it turned out that the Fed. Government came in to our corporate building and put a “hold” on us doing business until further investigation, they actually came in with machine guns. Quite interesting…and I was so devastated for all the company employees that had to be scared to death.
After our attorney’s got involved we had to fight to prove that we had done nothing wrong and a 9 month battle started.
The field had NEVER WORKED SO HARD IN OUR LIVES TO KEEP THINGS GOING during those 9 months, we thought we would be fine and we would get thru it, they just had to do their thing to investigate then everything would be ok, Bill assured us it was going to be ok, he said it will be hard because most companies go out of business, not because they did something wrong but because they can’t afford the negative press and the money it costs to fight the government. If anyone knew Bill he did not go down easily, and I never doubted that we could make it thru. I believed in him with every single cell of my body. Everyone knows that, my relationship with Bill was closer than anyone in my life. I have never claimed to be smart but I am loyal and if someone I trust tells me we will be ok…I believed and I fought and worked so hard with the field to do our part to keep it going. (Please...all of you who were there please read till the end...I have a message for you)
During that time, I was told that my phones were tapped and my security company for my home alarm in Del Mar said my house was broken in to, the only thing missing were boxes from my garage. Then they told me Bills house had a tap on it also.
That 9 months, were the hardest of most of our lives, but we believed…we worked our butts off to keep building even though we were being beaten down by every newspaper in the country with bad press and distributors who giving up left and right.
Bill said the government couldn’t believe we just kept going, we kept going because there were so many of us who had faith, countless amount of people that sacrificed so much to keep the company going.
In April was the trial…First week they tried to beat us up and second week was going to be our chance to show them we were good. When the first week was over, we were like…… that is it? Even though it was hard because some distributors who I had known a long time who left the company two years before twisted stories to make it sound bad, but overall it was all going to be ok. We were going to make it….
I will never forget that Friday for the rest of my life….I thought yeah!!! ………. next week is our turn and Bill told me he had a meeting that afternoon with the attorneys, I said ok……
When he walked out of the court house …..He walked over to me and said "it’s over"….I looked at him and said WHAT? We haven’t started our week yet, he said that the company owed the attorneys 4 million dollars and the government attorneys went to the company attorney and showed them the financials and said even if they win he doesn’t have enough money to pay for the next week of trial…..So Bill told me he is going to settle and it is over.
I could not believe it, he said,"kiddo go home and take care of your personal things". Bill knew so many of us spent 9 months on the road and had not done anything to keep up with our personal things, but we knew it wouldn’t matter because we would get it together after we won.
We never got that chance. I thought this is unbelievable, I was so tired and I could not believe what I was hearing; somehow I knew Bill would figure a way to create something for the people. By this time we had lost many of the people during the course of the 9 month investigation, many people left to do internet sales, Quick smart or Sky Biz or something like that, but of course many of us stayed…..till there was no more company.
Bill called me when I got home to my house in Florida and said he signed an agreement with the government that he would not do network marketing for 5 years. I was shocked!!!! What would happen to the people that were exhausted but were going to be devastated that the company is gone? I knew if Bill was not allowed to find them a home, I had to.
When Bill and I talked he said why don’t you take them to my Brother Steve’s network marketing company?
I said “Bill you told us that Steve did some awful things to you while he was President of the company” (Bill fired him or he left and he joined a competitive network marketing company). I suggested someone who had been an unbelievable friend thru out the years who owned a telecom network marketing company called A C N and Bill said that would be good. I flew out the next day and spent two weeks living in a hotel in Detroit trying to learn the company and figuring out a way for the company to take care of these reps that were so battered and bruised.
Later the next week Bill did a conference call and told the reps that he had signed an agreement to get out of the industry for 5 years but Laurie found you a home, and then he turned over the call to me. I did my best in the saddest circumstances to give them hope.
(Never did I ever know that his motive was to have us at ACN for 3 months, I would of NEVER done it, he said he was done with network marketing and never told me different until weeks after the reps came to ACN, and the founders of ACN did so much to help us) I was so overwhelmed and exhausted; we had been running since 1997 to rebuild, then fight a trial for 9 months…… then start over? That is the last thing I wanted to do but I knew I had to give them a good home for having the faith if Bill couldn’t.
After 2 weeks learning about the company A C N, we had 20 top people fly in to explain the opportunity and show them how to make money….I told the owners, I have no idea what will happen and who will come to find a home here because everyone was soooo beat up after 9 month of fighting. It might only be 10 of us that actually sign up, but they didn’t care, they felt so bad for what happened to everyone.
I was so grateful for the amazing support the company was giving to the team that decided to come on board, I am hearing that they were thousands, it was less than 100 that signed up that week when the company closed down. Most were too tired or went in another direction and were too beaten down by what happened.
After all of this was done, Bill now tells a story that he told me he wanted me to leave ACN after a few months and start something on my own for him…..I guess Bill just assumed that it would be ok for me to lie to the reps and keep them excited for 3 months and to the company owners who did all this stuff for us and then leave them high and dry????? BILL NEVER HAD A CONVERSATION W ITH ME TO START A COMPANY FOR/WITH HIM….I couldn’t believe it. Anyone who knows me knows I WOULD HAVE NEVER STARTED IN A C N and lie to the owners and the people who I tried to help find a home. I was so sad he was mad at me, and I was so upset that he wouldn’t have even asked me, he just assumed.
The next day I told everyone on the team that if they wanted to work with Bill tomorrow, the next day, or whenever he started a company that they could, I would never be upset, they had to do what they needed to do for them and their families, but I was not going to do that to A C N after everything the owners did for us. I had and never have in 8 years told someone not to work with Bill. Now today, I don’t even know what to say to people. I’m sad.
I didn’t even understand that whole thing…….. He told me and everyone else……he signed a 5 year agreement to stay out of the industry?
......EVERYONE KNOWS if he wanted to call the people and get them into some new company he could have called them himself……why did he not call them directly? I remember someone telling me he did do some conference calls and he kept saying Laurie said not to work with me and someone told me sweet Donnie from Atlanta, said, "no Bill you are wrong, she has never said that...stop saying that", and then he hung up the phone. If he could have taken care of all of them why didn’t he? I would have been so grateful!!!! That was so hard!
The only reason I brought people to A C N was to give them a home when the home they built before was gone.
Bill knows that, that owners of ACN knew that with everything we went thru, and so do the people who decided to come over (which was a very small group), we built it over again!
I put everyone under 5 people to build them and those people got the main income from the group that came over. I did not, I wanted them to make money. I don’t regret that and never will. Although I'll always love ACN, I never wanted to build a new company, we didn’t have a choice, and it was a safe and great place to land after their company was ripped out from underneath us all unexpectedly.
Ok…now the last 8 years……in ACN I had two wonderful people go to the top levels and because we all worked our butts off building again in 5 months we had another 25 reach Team Coordinator, we broke all the company records.
We had to figure out how to get people making money quick because many had leases that cost anywhere from $2000 to $5000 a month from the previous company, it was so tiresome to take on that kind of role. I tried the best I could to be supportive to so many exhausted that had huge responsibilities. I certainly was not perfect.
In the meantime I was juggling $60,000 a month overhead when my strong income of over $500,000 a year for years disappeared in one day in April of 2000.
It was devastating for all of us, but I wanted to be strong.
I really thought I did well for the people, and I hoped someday Bill and I would have a glass a wine and really tell me he was proud of me.
I refused to believe that Bill had only been my friend when I made him money, and that he only wanted us successful when it was for his benefit! That still breaks my heart!
I still don't want to believe it and pray it is not true.
As for my career, after getting people checks in ACN to the best of my ability (ACN, I will be grateful for those 2 years for life!)and to have given all of us a solid home, helping 25 people reach Team Coordinator in two years, (at the time that was the second to top position in A C N), I really had to stop to do some evaluating and catch my breath. I know my Dad was scared because I had taken care of him for so long. I decided to buy my Dad’s home in 2001 and giving him over $350,000, so that no matter what happened to me he would be ok.
I was exhausted. I felt like I had been running a marathon with no breaks for 6 years. I now had 3 homes that cost me over $35,000 a month, 2 that I was trying to sell; no one was buying million dollar homes after 9/11. I had to keep fighting.
I truly wanted to finally go to Nashville to write my music, which was a dream I put on hold since 1997 with everything that went array. I really wanted to settle down. I finally said enough.
I was done building the way I was building, my dream was to write music and start a foundation for kids especially if I never could have them.
I finally sold my house in California and got to move to Nashville, I was so excited, it was time for a new start.
Almost a month after I got to Nashville, my Dad had a stroke. I couldn’t believe it.
I was still trying to get everything in order with my other home in Florida and my Dad has a debilitating stroke that left his one side completely paralyzed and he lost his ability to speak.
I was the only one in the family who could have taken him to all his doctors, surgeries, and help him with rehabilitation. Everyone else had jobs or kids.
I took a year to help him and the pressure was piling up, but I didn’t care, he was my Dad and my Mom was already gone.
Again, I fought like crazy to keep things going while I helped him, back and forth driving him to medical clinics in Minnesota from Chicago.
After my Dad got better, I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and a little lost. I felt like I lived the last 15 years so fast and furious and I was so sad I missed out on the other things that were so important.
At that time I had a lot of heroes step into my life….my brother Derrill and many other little angels along the way….you know who you are and I thank-you.
I finally had decided that enough was enough, I had all this passion God has given me and I was going to create something so great, I created Right Stuff Production Company.
Still rebuilding and keeping things afloat, I was blessed to get closer to God, my church and the things that were so important to me.
I recently had a dream come true to meet my inspiration in my life since I was 10 years old. I am forever grateful to Aurora and Lee Zebert who gave me the opportunity and Patrick and Laurie Flavin along with his sister Tricia Flavin-Elattrache who helped make that dream come true. I had an opportunity to have dinner with Mr. Sylvester Stallone and his beautiful wife Jennifer and thank him for giving me such hope all my life, it was great to share this story with him and thank him for the examples over and over again in all stages of my life to keep going. It truly was an amazing experience that I will be forever grateful for. I also am so grateful to have met one of my new mentors in my life Jennifer Flavin-Stallone who has been such an inspiration to me of what she has done in her life.
As for my past mentor Bill. I will always love him for the good things he taught me in my life.
I do not know why he is doing this now, talking so bad about people who loved him? Over a million people (according to him) helped his company have success, only he got something like 4 to 40 million (I have no idea, I hear different amounts all the time), I just know it was more than most people make in a lifetime, when it was all over. I was truly happy for him.
The rest of us didn’t get a dime, but many have moved on and tried to be the best we could to be good people with everything we learned, and remember the good, not the ugly.
I don’t understand why he is not grateful?
I was just told that the reason he is doing this ugly ugly website, making people look awful is that
people think he is going to recreate the company somehow. He wants to build his credibility up by making so many of us look awful and dumb? I don’t remember him being perfect, Do any of you?
Can you imagine seeing the worst of him on tape for the last 20 years? We would have never done that to him. In 1995 the show 20/20 got some pretty ugliness of him and he hated what they did to him, and so did we.
It crushed us yet we all defended him.
Now he is doing the same to people who believed in him. It is so incredibly sad.
He feels if he breaks down all the people who worked hard for him he will look better?
I don’t even understand, he sent me an email in 2002 that was so nice... (Below)…now in 2008 he states that in 2000 I said “F-You” they are mine, I am truly sad.
I don’t understand because Bill always taught us “don’t break people’s legs to be number 1, just run the fastest”.
Bill sponsored 5 people and someone told me he says there was over a million applications in the company and he is angry and ungrateful? It does not make any sense.
There is plenty of room for success for all, he taught us that. We have moved on in our lives and have still always defended him. I just don’t understand.
I would like to find one person that will give their name, not supposed initial’s that will say that I spoke poorly of him before this terrible thing he is doing now.
He seems so ungrateful to so many, not just the ones he mentions but how about the other 1000's that did believe, I have not heard gratitude, just anger.
How can someone get millions of dollars as a settlement when so many who helped him thru the years got nothing and be ungrateful to all of us for believing in him?
I loved this man with all my heart for what he taught me. I will always love the man I knew.
I thought I learned from him to teach people to be the Best We Can Be and go on to be prosperous, doesn't he truly want us to prosper or just if he gets a piece? This is not the Bill I believed in, I pray it wasn’t. Message to the ones who had the faith to the end: I thank-you.
Bill: I won’t stop being grateful for the things I learned. I am sad that you have to try and destroy other people lives’ for some benefit to you. I never learned that from you…If you make us all look so bad and awful, when we all gave you so many years, you are the only one who is losing Bill, this does not make you look like the great man you are. How many years will it take you to do it to this next group, please stop doing this to people Bill. I pray you are better than this.
A note for all his producers that are developing these things: think about what you are doing.
Please don't think I am stupid folks, I am sure it may get ugly for me for confronting this, but this is wrong, for everyone who has fought for him or everyone that are about to.
Any of you that would like to respond or having any questions you are welcome to at laurie@laurierubidge.com
