Ten Fantastic Things You Might Not Know About Young Living

I have not posted anything on here in quite a while, trying to puzzle out how to meld family fun, life thoughts, and my love of Young Living and my work with my team. We've exploded in the last 2 years to a 700-person team, my White Knight has retired from the Air Force and now works on a special project for our church, (there is a blog coming for that too, YAY!), two new babies born (pics and story to come), my oldest boy turns 18 this year and is 6'3" and 200 lbs and really looks like a ... man. The others are 15, 12, 8, 6, 3, and 1... but for right now, I'm going to start out with ten things that truly great about Young Living - these are things that have really rocked my world to learn about the company I have aligned myself with, and the more I see, the more impressed I am. So join me as I renew my commitment to blogging, and as I renew my commitment to open my doors and share my family with  you all. Family pictures and stories will come - this is one I wrote about 2 years ago but still holds true today, so it is a good place to start. 

1. When Gary Young says his goal is "oils in every home" he means it! 

Each corporate employee is given a $150 product credit to use each month in order to purchase essential oils and oil-infused products. This makes happier employees, and allows them to fall in love with essential oils too so they also can be a "product of the product."

2. Young Living Essential Oils Corporate walks the talk when it comes to giving to others Young Living Corporate pays 100% of the administrative costs for the D. Gary Young/Young Living Foundation. 

This allows every penny, nickel, and dime donated by distributors and friends to be put to the various projects and needs supported by the Foundation. Not one dime of distributor-donated funds is put towards covering admin or paperwork needs.

3. Young Living Essential Oils walks the talk when it comes to making care calls and supporting "Team YL". 

Silver and above leaders are assigned to regional leadership liaisons. Many of these liaisons make monthly, or even twice-monthly care- and follow-up calls to assigned leader-members to check in on them, see if they can be of service, and be helpful in general. This fosters a company-wide, top-down environment of responsible leadership, and fulfills the Policy and Procedure mandate to support our downline members.

4. Young Living goes green - even when you're not looking! 

The used raw material remaining after distillation is complete for a particular oil is put into compost bins in order to provide fertile and ready soil for future crops. Young Living is truly dedicated to keeping our essential oils and products as clean and beyond-organic as possible.

5. Young Living Diamond Leaders are truly DIAMOND leaders! 

In 2014, Young Living growth and expansion was so fast that corporate had trouble keeping up!! This meant long wait times when calling customer service for help, and shipping was backed up by several weeks! This was NOT the culture Young Living set up, and our leaders rose to the occasion! A number of diamond leaders (whose names I have not yet discovered :) stepped up to the plate, went to the corporate call centers to take over while call-center-employees headed over to help out in the shipping warehouses. Talk about servant leadership and setting the example! No job is to low for our leaders to take an active role and encourage downline members!

6. Explosive growth meant Young Living Corporate offices expanded from one to FOUR office buildings in fewer than five years! 

These buildings were not all that Young Living expanded in order to keep up with demand! They also built at least two new packing and shipping warehouses and hired additional staff. And demand continues to rise!

7. Young Living is the only company that can show you the lay of the land. 

No other essential oil company in the United States owns any of it's own farms. Yet Young Living members and the general public can visit Young Living-owned farms for farm-days, family events, Young Living-sponsored leadership events, and more each year! You can get your hands into the soil, take a tour, enjoy special festivities, and ask questions in any of the nine company-owned farms around the world, and better still: Corporate encourages you to go!!

8. Young Living is the only company with 30-years' training and knowledge. 

Gary Young began exploring alternative and holistic options more than 30 years ago. Young Living as a company has been in business for 21 years, as of 2015. No other company can talk about being in business for more than twenty years, much less having training going further back than that! This experience matters, as you will see!

9. Young Living puts that 21-years of business to good use. 

No other company can offer distributors and retail customers more than 300 essential oils, blends and oil-infused products to use for whole-body health and balance. This is on top of the generous compensation plan.

10. Young Living corporate never makes comparison to other companies - and has set the bar for company expectation. 

Not only does Young Living not make comparison to being "like" any other company out there (the folks with the most to show for their work, don't need to brag about it), but it is written in company policy and procedures that members are not to speak poorly of, or "bash", other companies or their distributors. The culture and moral values of a company's top leaders trickles down in many ways. This way of behaving sets a tone company-wide for how everyone is expected to act towards other groups.

 

What would YOU add to this list? Some additions from commenting helpers... 

11. Young Living's Seed to Seal guarantee counts for a lot more than you might think! 

When Young Living says our oils are "Therapeutic grade", what exactly does that mean? It does not mean that our oils are "certified" anywhere or by any organization. There are no such distinctions, as yet, in the essential oil universe. However, it does try to give an easy way to sum up Young Living's Seed to Seal Promise. Young Livings maintains strict quality controls of every phase of the essential oil process, from before the seed goes into the ground, until the oil is in the bottle ready to be shipped to your door! Make sure you check out www.seedtoseal.com to see the whole process!

12. Even more quality control goes on behind the scenes!

Young Living sends random samples out for third-party testing to further insure purity and a top-notch product arrives on the Brown Van when delivered.

13. Young Living's ratings are top notch. Young Living has an "A+" rating on the Better Business Bureau. 

As the BBB website states: "A BBB Accredited Business since 7/15/2015 BBB has determined that Young Living Essential Oils, LC meets BBB accreditation standards, which include a commitment to make a good faith effort to resolve any consumer complaints. BBB Accredited Businesses pay a fee for accreditation review/monitoring and for support of BBB services to the public." While this does not mean that problems never occur, it does give a decent indication that Young Living has made every effort to resolve the complaints and issues that arise in a timely manner. That's top-notch customer service - and that's Young Living.

14. More top-notchery... Young Living is also an accepted member of the Direct Sales Association (DSA). 

The DSA website says this: "One of the hallmarks of our Code of Ethics is that it is enforced by an independent administrator empowered by DSA members to resolve issues. The Code Administrator can impose a variety of remedies in the event of a Code violation including calling for refunds, ordering a mandatory repurchase of inventory or other measures as needed. When media reports or other sources make the Administrator aware of allegations that could be Code violations, the Administrator may conduct an investigation into the practices of our members and suggest how issues may be resolved." Young Living has agreed to abide by these standards and the DSA code of ethics.

Three poems by Chef

Running Slow

I'll stop to smell the flowers sweet,
You'll run to not be late.
And I'll arrive at half-past-nine…
You arrived at eight.

An you will get the raise in pay,
And I will not;
But you will never slow,
And I will know the joys of life,
The beauty of the snow.

The softness of the moss
Or the swell smell of the rose.
And because you get the money,
I'll know things you'll never know.

Holy Friday, Orthodox Easter (Pascha) and Blessings

Perhaps you have seen this blog post by Rita Wilson (actress in her own right, Greek Orthodox and Tom Hanks' wife). It compares some of the differences between Eastern Orthodox Pascha and Easter as celebrated by western churches. I'll leave it to her to explain some of the differences and let you read her blog post there. 

For me, the weekend really begins the week before: Holy Week. It is about more than just Pascha and Christ rising from the Dead. Sort of. It is about the whole process moving from Christ in the Garden to being on the Cross. And we commemorate those events in various ways throughout the process of Lent. 

Last night was Holy Thursday. We read the story of Christ going to the garden to pray, His arrest, and all the way through to the tomb being empty, from each of the four Gospel accounts told of the story - so 12 gospel readings in all; many churches read them in a very dark room, while you kneel. 

Holy Friday, the service starts out by commemorating Christ in the tomb. We sing the Noble Joseph, at the beginning and it really is just a beautiful and moving song. 

 


This is not our church, nor even my favorite rendering of the song, but does give a pretty good view of what the service looks like for many churches. 

Book Review: Rejection Proof

As kids, we face rejection on a daily basis - every time we ask our parents for something that we know is going to be turned down, we are taking a risk. By the time we move into adulthood, we have repeated that course of action millions of times, moving away from our "safe place" of rejection (our families) and out into the wider world of friends, teachers, and strangers. As adults, many of us have experienced that "no" so many times that instead of being inoculated to hearing a negative answer to our requests, we are paralyzed to even ask any more.

A man named Jia Jang took this paralyzing fear by the horns when he found himself living a successful life, by society's standards, but miserable because he was not living up to his personal dreams and expectations. He started on a quest to get rejected 100 times in 100 days. The idea involved making requests in varying levels of outlandishness, and getting rejected. His requests ranged from asking a stranger for $100, to asking to slide down a pole at a fire station, to getting a free room at a hotel, being the worst salesman ever, and so on. Through the course of this project, he refined his technique and received better and better results at getting to "yes".

Opening up to the ultimate rejection: 

Saying Good Bye

This weekend I lost my first parent. I have been so blessed to make it 38 years before having this happen. I knew it would come eventually. It had to. We're on a path to death from the moment we are conceived. But… this was not expected. And what do you say when it comes to pass? 

Taken before the birth of the two great-grands, and three additional grands… This is family. This is love.

I am the "lucky" one. Of six children, I am the only one who lives more than about a four hour drive from my parents. So I have not been as close to the final days and hard moment-by-moment events. And I am the "unlucky" one too. Now that he is gone, I am hearing more and more about how many of my brothers and my sister went to sit and chat with him regularly; some of the even went daily. The grandkids, and new great-grands who were brought around, and how much they were loved. 

Recipe Day! Lemon Crepes with What??

Lemon Crepes with Lemongrass-Lemon Cream Cheese Filling and NingXia Red Drizzle

A friend of mine created this amazing-looking recipe and shared it on her Essentially Pampered FaceBook Page today. You really should check it out for more Yummy, oil-infused recipes! She plans to set up a blog soon too, but until she does, FaceBook is where it's at!

Enjoy! (I'm drooling here!)

Psssttt!! Head over to my shared Three Friends Fitness Blog to see the recipe itself, along with important notes about the essential oils used! Doesn't that look SOOOO good?? I can''t wait to make them myself!

Understanding and Asking Forgiveness

As children, we're never fully aware of the pressures the adults in our lives are facing. This is as it should be - our homes should be a safe haven, a place of trust, love and communion. The adults may not always act or react "just so", but often work to shield their kids and do their best to improve on what their parents did.

As a child, it is rare to consider who your parents were "before."