Deidrene Joyce: Welcome to Drop of Inspiration.
I'm your host, Deidrene Joyce.
Today we get to hear from more inspiring members
of our Young Living family, Courtney and John Critz.
The Critz' were recently honored at Young Living headquarters
for reaching Royal Crown Diamond.
And afterwards they sat down with US general manager,
Jeff Pearson, to discuss their passion for wellness,
and how they achieve success.
So, without further ado, here's Courtney, John, and Jeff.
♪ ♪
Jeff Pearson: Okay, so let's first start off with you guys
telling us a little bit about yourselves, where you grew up,
where you're from, how you met.
So let's start with you, Courtney.
Courtney Critz: I grew up in Texas, in Fort Worth.
I'm the second oldest of a family of six.
I am the oldest daughter.
I home schooled growing up.
We met when we were five years old.
We were family friends.
He was good friends with my brother,
and I was good friends with his sister - still are good friends.
And interacted a lot through home schooling.
We were both home schooled all the way through school.
And graduated together in a little graduation ceremony.
And I grew up a bookworm.
I was one of those pretty nerdy kids. I wasn't good at sports.
I did jigsaw puzzles and like hung out in my room.
But I had a lot of close friendships.
I didn't do a lot of casual friendships,
I did serious, close friendships.
And I loved people.
I used to write all the time, and I would write letters
to I don't know how many people -
did the whole pen pal thing.
And I still have all of those letters that I wrote to people back and forth.
And I think... I read a ton of books that I think
shaped a lot of how I think, the kind of woman that I wanted to be.
And I grew up kind of always wanting to be a mom.
That was the goal was to be a mom.
My mom loved being a mom, and I think that that rubbed off on me.
So I didn't have a lot of business thought necessarily
about things that I would do outside of that.
But I wanted to help people.
I wanted to write, and I wanted to help people
and I wanted to... make people's lives better,
and that everything I was going to do was gonna fit inside of that.
So, if it didn't fit with that, then I was gonna say no to it.
And if it did, then it was a possibility, and that sort of opened and closed doors.
We graduated high school,
I went straight to work, didn't go to college.
I nanny'd some, and then I went to work
for my church in children's ministry.
We got married.
I had just turned 21 and he had just turned 22.
We had been together for four years.
He's the only guy I have ever dated.
I think we just grew up together.
Like we became adults together instead of separately
so we grew closer and kind of figured life out at the same time.
And I had my oldest when I was 23,
and so I was in "mom mode" after that.
Quit my job. And just geared in.
And I really didn't have a thought that I would ever do
anything else except take care of them.
But I do think while I didn't necessarily realize
anything was missing or feel like anything was missing,
I felt like everything was full, and there wasn't
enough time to do what I needed to do.
When I did get into this, I realized there were whole parts
of me that weren't being utilized,
that weren't being expressed.
And it's funny, we always laugh about –
we lived in Austin for a few years.
And I told him, "I wish I could write a blog."
But I had three kids at the time, and I said,
"But there's just no space in my life for anything at all.
I can't write something."
And so a few years later we had three more kids
and we were running this business.
And he looked at me, and was like,
"Remember when you couldn't just write a blog post
and now you have all these people on your team?" (Chuckles)
It's funny, but you make time for what you prioritize.
And that's what we've learned as much
as anything is the time is never available.
You decide what matters and you go after it,
and you make it happen.
But you never look up and go,
"there's an opening in my life for something."
That's just a really rare thing, especially I think in our culture in life.
Your life is just gonna be full, so you have
to determine what am I going to keep,
and what am I going to remove, and what holds more value?
And so much of it, people make a big deal out of saying
"yes" but a lot of success is
what you're saying no to as much as anything.
Because that's the only way that there's any room to ever say yes.
His business took us to Austin,
and that season was really lonely for me.
I had always lived around the same people my whole life,
and if it hadn't been for that, I don't think I would've
understood the desperate need for community that people have.
And I really think while the people are excited about
the products and they need the wellness,
and they need the financial, it's the community more than anything,
that is drawing people.
And we had a situation recently where a girl
was telling us, she said, "I literally bought my kit because
I walked into a home school meeting that you guys were in,
and I saw you all talking about it,
and I just wanted so much to be a part of what ya'll were talking about.
And I went home and bought a kit,
not even believing they worked.
Just to do what ya'll were doing."
And people are lonely, and isolated.
And so I think being there, if I had never made that move,
I wouldn't have known how much people needed
that because I wouldn't have experienced it.
And then right after that season, we came back
to where we had lived all of our lives, we moved back,
and transitioned, and that's when the oil thing started.
And he was just excited because I had been on
a natural health journey for a long time
and I had taken away everything that was scented ever in our home.
The only thing you would ever smell was vinegar, which he hates.
And he's a super sensory person.
When we were dating, we would go in Bath and Body Works
and I couldn't get him out of there.
He was smelling every lotion, every candle.
And I was like, "We got to go." And he's like, "But one more."
John Critz: Logged a lot of Bath and Body Work time.
Courtney Critz: Yeah. And that's -
John Critz: Smelling all the things.
Courtney Critz: He would buy me all the fragrances and all the stuff.
And so when I got rid of all of that because I realized
what it was doing to our health, we just had sort of a no-scent home. And...
John Critz: Dark times. (Laughter)
Courtney Critz: So, when I bought my kit, you know,
and I've had friends that have bought the kit,
and the husbands have been like, "Oh, that's terrible.
I don't want any of those smells or whatever."
I brought it to him, and he goes, "We can have this stuff?"
And I said, "Yeah, we can."
And I remember he and his brother, I'd just had my baby,
and they came over to meet the baby and I had just gotten my kit.
And he and his brother were sitting there smelling all of them going,
"Dude, it smells like a spa, this is awesome."
And it's so funny to look back on it now because
his brother and wife are Crown Diamonds and we're RCD's,
and like doing this whole thing together,
and we had no idea that day what was happening,
that we were starting all of that.
But he was on board with me. And so supportive.
He has been all along, so supportive of anything I've done health-wise,
even when it was crazy and gross,
and he didn't really want to do it, he's been supportive.
And he's supported me in having the kids do it.
And then business-wise, it was the same way.
He just, he would say, "yes" and help me figure it out.
And I know a thousand times over that I would not have
done this if that weren't the case, if I didn't have that level of support.
That's a huge thing, and having the confidence
to go forward with this, absolutely.
Jeff Pearson: So you have a lot of moms on your team.
A lot of people that just want to do the business.
What difference does it make to have a supporting spouse like that?
Courtney Critz: It's huge. You can go through and look
at the leadership of the team, and you can tell based
on timelines and what happens with them.
I could tell you without knowing their husbands which
ones have support, and which ones don't.
It's a huge, huge factor.
John Critz: Yeah, it's big.
Courtney Critz: And definitely, they can a thousand percent do it on their own.
But I think honestly, in some ways, the single moms
on my team have a way easier time than the mom
with a husband who is pulling them a different direction
because it's so hard for them.
It's so hard to - they feel like they're doing something
wrong because it's pulling the family apart.
And when he can catch the vision for it too,
and they can move in that direction together,
it just changes everything.
Jeff Pearson: So, let's go back. John, let's go back to your story.
So tell us where you grew up.
It sounds like you guys obviously knew each other for a long time,
but give us a little bit of a look into your background.
John Critz: Yeah, so, we met.
I've always lived in the Fort Worth area.
We had a little stint in Austin for business, but yeah, I grew up there.
Courtney and I, we have a photo of us at
a birthday party together when we were five.
And so, that was kind of, you know,
we can go back and say like yeah, we've actually known each other.
And we don't remember each other from back then, but (chuckles)...
Courtney Critz: Oh, no, I remember you. You were super cute.
John Critz: Oh, yeah, she remembers me.
Jeff Pearson: Oh, was it love at first sight?
John Critz: Probably. Courtney Critz: Probably.
He had on red suspenders,
so what are you going to do with that?
John Critz: Yeah, I was wearing a tie, and suspenders
to a birthday party, like I don't even know.
Courtney Critz: I legitimately did though, the whole time
I was growing up, I thought he was the cutest guy I knew.
The entire time I was growing up.
So it was there solidly.
John Critz: (Chuckles) Yeah. And you know, so same thing.
I was home schooled all through school.
And I have one brother, one sister.
And kind of opposite of Courtney, I was a big sports guy.
So I was playing all the sports, and doing crazy things and yeah.
I have a lot of fun stories about, you know,
adventure type sports stuff.
So it's probably good that I grew up before
there was YouTube, you know? (Chuckles)
Yeah, so Courtney, I had a bunch of client projects with business,
and Courtney was working on, you know, the health of our family,
and she showed up one night with this box of oils.
I had no idea what essential oils were, and you know,
and she started talking about them, and all of the benefits.
And I was like, sweet, that sounds great.
And we had always been into natural health.
So I mean, when I was 16 I was doing cleanses.
I think when you're in the home school world,
especially then when it wasn't very, you know,
very accepted or very known, it was just weird.
And so we did a lot of weird things.
Courtney Critz: We're used to being odd.
John Critz: So I drank like crazy things that were health-conscious,
and it was like vitamin C icing on cakes and...
Courtney Critz: My mom, we never let her live that down.
She did a vitamin C icing on my brother's cake. It was terrible.
John Critz: Yeah, so, yeah. So when the oils came in,
I guess what I'm saying it wasn't a huge departure
for me and they actually smelled good.
You know, because I was used to other
natural things not smelling good.
And so, I was excited that these things smelled good.
Courtney Critz: I wouldn't say that you really used them a ton at first.
John Critz: Yeah.
Courtney Critz: You were great with them being around,
and all of that, but you didn't like regularly use them.
John Critz: Yeah, I didn't regularly put them on.
You know, the diffusers were going.
And I enjoyed the smell. But...
Courtney Critz: I actually didn't have a diffuser until
I was like a Gold or Platinum because they didn't come with the kit then.
You had to mail in a coupon to get your diffuser.
And I just never get anything like that done,
and so I never ended up buying a diffuser for a long, long time
which is really funny to think about now.
Jeff Pearson: So can we go into that moment?
So let's go to when you were introduced the kit for the first time.
Can you share with us what that was like for you?
Was it a home party, was it an education event?
So just describe what that was like for you,
your first experience with the kit, and learning about Young Living?
Courtney Critz: It was an into to oils class.
A sweet pastor's wife, who is my upline, and she's a Crown Diamond now.
She came down from Oklahoma and taught the class.
And Callie Shepherd is the one who invited me to it.
She sent me an email.
And the thing that's interesting, is so back to the lonely time
in Austin when I was by myself,
Callie was an acquaintance who also had kids.
Our three kids were literally like twins, born about two weeks apart.
And she sent me in the mail one day, a book.
And it was about raising littles or something,
and it just had a little note that said,
"I know you're in the same season of life as I am, and I thought about you."
And it's funny because I guarantee you the fact that
she mailed me that book in Austin –
I don't even remember if I read the book –
had everything to do with the fact that I said yes,
and went to that oils class.
And we talk about that a lot.
It's the investments that you're making in people's lives
long before this comes into play,
that are what cause people to trust you, and do this.
So when she asked me to come,
I thought of her as someone that I trusted who cared,
really cared about me.
And so I never thought anything except that that's
where the invitation was coming from,
was a place of really caring about my family, with nothing to gain.
So she told me this lady was going to come.
I went huge pregnant with my fifth to this class.
Callie was huge pregnant with her fifth, or her third.
And as a matter of fact, somebody the other day
found the picture of me sitting at the class, at my first class.
And so I went in, and Ladonna just walked through the kit.
We had PowerPoints at that point, and they were,
you know, very detailed, long classes.
But she just shared her story.
She shared her health experience which is very dramatic.
And I was... I mean, I didn't doubt a word of it.
She told about Young Living, she told about how much she trusted them.
And I don't even know at what point I decided to buy a kit.
It was probably like five minutes into the class that I knew I was going to buy a kit.
And I remember them passing all the oils and the PanAway got to me,
and I was like, "And I'm gonna keep this one right here."
For some reason, that smell, I loved it.
And... I mean it was just -
if you get to use the oils, it's just a no-brainer.
But there were so many people that wanted to sign up at that class.
There were probably 30 of us, and everybody was going to buy a kit.
And so I didn't even wait to sign-up.
I went home that night and ordered.
But I did buy an EOPR, and the Gentle Baby's book
at that class because she had resources.
And that was so key because I went home
and started reading and saw all of these things that I needed oils for.
So by the time I made my kit purchase,
I was already thinking about the things I needed outside
of the kit and was ready to roll with all of these ideas.
And the Gentle Baby's book really gave me vision
for how I was gonna use it with my family.
And Ladonna just made it so simple because she
referred a lot to just taking the oils and putting them on the bottoms of your feet.
And so I went home, and I didn't think to myself,
I need to mix something up, or figure out how to rebottle it
and make it into my own blend or do...
I just thought, I'm literally going to take these bottles,
I'm going to open them, I'm going to rub them on my feet,
and we're going to experience incredible vitality.
And I thought it was easy.
And that's what I needed.
I didn't need anything that was more complicated than that.
So I went home, ordered my kit that night.
I found the scrap of paper where Callie wrote
her member number down, and we call it like
"the million dollar member number."
But we went home, and I just signed up,
and put her name in both of the blanks.
I did not realize that it was a network marketing company.
If I had, it might have affected things.
We had a horrific experience with network marketing
where I lost us several thousands of dollars and hated the whole thing.
Hated it. And it was wellness.
And so I had had a peek into what I thought that world was like,
and wanted nothing to do with it.
It was the kind of thing where you had products
and you were trying to sell them to people
and trying to recruit people, and putting signs on like posts.
John Critz: Yeah, stapling something (inaudible) posts.
Courtney Critz: Yeah, it was horrible.
So I thought I would not have thought that was something I could do.
I also told people at the time, "I can't sell anything.
I can't sell anything."
But I could do what Ladonna did, which was just share with us.
So I think... maybe even before I got my kit,
or I guess right when I got my kit,
Callie went home the next day, and had her baby.
And then I didn't hear again from her for a while.
But I got my kit, had my baby.
And then Ladonna came back.
And so I just copied and pasted that email
and sent it to some friends because I thought it was great.
And they went to the class, and I wasn't even there.
And they just used my member number and signed up.
And so this whole thing kind of started running without me
knowing that it was network marketing at all.
John Critz: Right.
Jeff Pearson: So who was that first person that you signed up,
and what was the thought process, and the emotions behind that?
Courtney Critz: It was Kristen De Mori and Trina Thornburg.
They were both Platinums.
And were the first two that signed up.
They went to that class and they called me,
and we had this conversation, and they said,
"Should we do retail or wholesale?"
And I was like, "I don't know. I did wholesale."
And they said, "We think we're going to do retail.
No, we're going to do wholesale."
And I said, "Yeah, just do wholesale, get a kit."
And that was literally the conversation that we had.
I was an amazing salesperson. (Chuckles)
And then I think what happened,
because I've tried to figure this out.
I am pretty sure what happened was I ordered my kit the end of March.
I think they ordered theirs in April, and I didn't order again till May.
So I think I did not get a check when they signed up.
So I was still real out of the loop on how all of that worked.
That's the best I can figure out.
And then I ordered every month after that.
Something kept me from that first month, getting that check.
So even though I enrolled them, I just didn't think anything of it.
I thought, "Oh, they're using oils, that's fun,"
and that was literally the end of my thought process.
We didn't talk about it that much anymore.
And I always tell my team to never rule people out
when you're looking down there because I was
just that person sitting there in the down line
viewer doing nothing, making no contacts,
not at all aware of what was going on.
And here I am today.
Like you never know what people are going to turn around and do.
And so then the month after that, I just, on my own,
got on the website, and was looking stuff up,
found Essential Rewards, thought that's a no-brainer,
why wouldn't I do that?
And ordered, I think I ordered NingXia for the first time
that month and a couple things that I got from
that Gentle Baby's book because again,
I had taken those resources home.
And then I've ordered every month since then,
and just kind of figured out what I wanted to order and put it on my order.
And then the girls under me had Ladonna come back to teach classes.
And so the first check I remember getting was closer to that fall, and it came in.
I was like, "Whoa, I just got paid." I went and showed him.
I was like, "I'm going to buy all this stuff now."
And he was like, "Yeah, you do that." (Chuckles)
Jeff Pearson: So was it when you got that first check
that you realized it was a great business opportunity?
Courtney Critz: Uh-hmm.
Jeff Pearson: Or when was that moment where you're like,
"I can actually make an income doing this."
Courtney Critz: Yeah, it was the check.
It was the accidental paycheck.
And it was just kind of a, "Oh, my goodness,
what's happening, I don't understand."
Because again, I had tried the network marketing and never made anything.
So the fact that I had just shared with some friends
something that I loved, and got... and it was a decent check.
Because they had had her come down,
and a bunch of people had come to the class and ordered stuff.
And so, it was a surprising thing for sure.
John Critz: Yeah.
Courtney Critz: And really just got our attention.
I mean results get people attention.
So the results of the oils got our attention quickly,
and then we saw results with the business
that got our attention with the business.
John Critz: Yeah, and then once we got that check,
I remember Courtney going and reading about the comp plan
and then she showed it to me and was like,
"Hey, can you help me look at this?
I think I understand what this is."
We both looked at it and it was like, I mean, it's pretty clear.
Like if we do these things, this is how much.
We get a spreadsheet, and we kind of projected stuff out.
And we're like, "Man, this is a legitimate business opportunity."
Courtney Critz: But I think in our head it was always,
"Can it really be like this?" Like we think it's going to be.
And so, there was a little bit of that factor there.
But Ladonna really handled it for us, and she was
a good seven, eight levels above us, and she was so sweet.
She came down several times.
She was literally having to call us, and be like,
"You need to place an order."
Callie hit Executive because of that class that she came down
and taught, and canceled her ER order the same month.
So Ladonna called her and said, "Callie, you just hit Executive,
you don't want to cancel your ER."
And Callie goes, "I can't remember to change the order,
and I keep getting the same thing."
And Ladonna goes, "Just let me help you."
So she was just so patient with us and really walked us through it.
She was the perfect person for us to have ended up with.
And I love it, because I know people get kind of
hung up on what team they're on, and all that kind of stuff.
If Callie hadn't invited me to that class,
probably a week or two later, our area was exploding with oils,
and there's another really big team
in our area that I know a ton of people on.
Two weeks later I would've been on that other team.
But I love it because I think there's so much purpose in that.
And wherever you end up, there's a reason that you
ended up on that team, and there's a reason
that you ended up with those people.
And I believe that so wholeheartedly,
that if you look for it, and you figure out what that reason is,
you're going to get really excited about
where you are, and who you're with.
And I've seen over and over again, while yes,
that team around me was exploding and they were more local to me,
and Ladonna was in Oklahoma, she was who I needed to be with.
And the very fact that she wasn't local to me is what pushed me.
It's what made me own this because I looked up and said,
"There is no reason to ask this sweet lady
to keep coming down from Oklahoma.
I have to teach a class."
Well how long would that have taken me to do that
if someone had been right there, I don't know.
So all of that, I believe was for so much purpose.
And our upline is like Debra Rayburn and people
that are so very focused on product education - Sarah Johnson.
And I ate that up.
I needed that environment of product education.
It was really powerful for me.
So I posted on Facebook about Breathe Again,
and I had so many people ask me about it,
that I decided to teach a class.
And they were just my personal friends.
I didn't have any kind of social media following at all,
just my friends that I was friends with.
And they asked me about it, and so I decided to host a class,
and I was really nervous, and I got Ladonna's PowerPoint
that had butterflies on it.
And I got ready to teach my class.
And I posted the class and said,
"I'm going to teach a class at my house, if you want to come."
And 100 people said they wanted to come.
And I thought, oh, goodness, here we go.
The night before the class was awful.
My kids got sick, which is great when you're teaching about wellness.
And like my daughter had febrile seizures when
she would get sick, so it wasn't just like sickness.
I was up all night just terrified, just holding her
right next to me, to feel her and so upset.
Didn't get to prep for my class.
He had to keep the kids in the other half of the house
while I welcomed people to something I wasn't prepared for.
And my mom watched my daughter really closely.
And I just thought, "What am I doing? Why am I trying
to fit this into my life when it's already so crazy?"
But I loved the oils so much.
And then Ladonna called me that morning and said...
she just talked to me and said,
"We believe that you were called to this.
We believe you're the answer to our prayers.
We're trying to reach young moms."
And she told me Debra Rayburn's story
and how she lost her husband, and then had her first class
and how these people came, and that started Debra's whole business.
And she said, "I think this class, that's your moment."
And... I believed her.
And I believed that that was what was happening.
And she spoke that life over my business.
And I don't think I ever doubted it from that point on.
I really did believe that that was how it was going to be,
whatever it looked like to get there.
And so I went out, and I taught my class. I didn't close.
My close literally was, "So, these are great,
and if you want to know more, you know where to find me."
That was my close. I was the most horrible closer.
Jeff Pearson: Did anybody sign up?
Courtney Critz: They did.
So, I was so afraid of being pushy that I would not tell
anyone anything, which makes you super sketchy
when you won't tell anyone how to order.
They're like, "What are you hiding?"
But I just so didn't want to pressure my friends.
But one of the girls there goes,
"Could you maybe show me how to order?"
And I said, "Oh, yeah, I can do that."
So we pulled open the computer and I showed her,
and she and her mom signed up.
And I somehow had the presence of mind to think,
"You should probably sign up with my member number,
and then we should probably give your mom your member number."
I did somehow manage to think that.
And so we did that.
And then everybody kind of just watched while they did that.
And so sign-ups trickled in.
The first few months that I was building, it was a lot like that,
because I didn't know how to close.
And so I had very close to 100 percent sign-up rate
for my classes but it was over three months instead
of it being immediate because I didn't have those skills.
And so I taught the first class and then Kristen,
my enrollment decided to have me teach another class,
and I hit Executive the end of that month.
But it was because... the comp plan changed the month I started building.
So I had to read everything, nobody really knew what was going on,
everything had just shifted.
But I hit Executive by the new comp plan,
even though they were still both going because my mom was one leg.
Like no one under her, just my mom.
So my mom was one leg, and then the class I had
taught for Kristen made another leg, and I hit Executive.
And then Ladonna showed me the Silver in Six promotion,
where you could get the Aroma Complete.
And again, I really wasn't focused on the business,
but I saw those oils and I wanted the oils.
Because man, the product drives the Young Living
consumer like nothing else does, we just want free product.
So I thought how many people can I help with those?
My family, all of those kinds of things.
And I said, "I'm going to do that, I'm going to hit Silver in Six."
So I started studying the new comp plan,
and really just paying attention,
trying to find everything I could find because
I was gonna do that in six months, and I had to get a second leg
because my mom was not going to probably
get me to Silver by herself.
So, I just started working.
And man, I didn't know anything about strategy
or any of those kinds of things.
But I looked at it, and I thought, "I've got to have legs,
I've got to help people."
So I basically took all the people that I had signed up
that first class or two, and I just started helping them sign up people.
And you know, I enrolled a lot of people over that time,
but I gave away sponsoring and enroller spots
because I just wanted to help people get started,
so I don't have a list of the people that I've enrolled.
But I just helped people.
And people were sharing with people right and left.
I think they just... it's not that they thought it was easy,
but there wasn't a lot of hurdle to it then.
They didn't have to figure a lot of things out or do anything.
Just, we had a class, and you brought people,
and you signed them up, and then we had another class,
and you brought people.
And we were all bringing people to all of these classes,
and I was teaching them right and left.
I remember I made a limit at one point that
I wouldn't teach more than five or six intro classes a month
because it was getting a little hairy.
But I never taught for the same person really twice.
I was in a new house every time.
I only taught the one class in my house ever.
And it was just always for a new person who had come to the last class.
And so our duplication was heavy.
And I bet there was no one enrolling more than five to ten people.
But then everybody was enrolling that many people.
And that moves way faster than one person
who is enrolling a ton of people.
Just the duplication of that is huge.
And people saw us and thought, "Well I'm just like them,
and I can do this too, and will you come over to my house and do this?"
So then I started telling my girls that were the leaders,
I said, "There's only so many intro classes a month I can do,
you're either going to have to wait for me, or teach your own."
So that was kind of the... they were like, "all right, here we go."
And so they started doing their own.
And we just got excited about working together.
And something I think came alive in all of us
that had been dormant, and we woke up to the this part
of us that was ambitious, and that we got excited
about all of the people we were helping and we saw...
man, the testimonies that started rolling in.
I mean the stories we've heard behind the themes,
and how life has changed for families, and marriages,
and you know, children, like you would weep over
what has happened with people because of this product.
And that will keep you going a lot of late nights when
you're seeing that happening right and left.
Especially because we knew these people, these were our friends.
These were people we loved.
So it was a really beautiful time of going from where
I felt like I only had so much of me to give to the people around me,
to all of the sudden realizing I could have huge impact
without really being out of my home very much,
just at home with my family could impact a lot of people,
and that was a big deal.
Jeff Pearson: So you have seven kids.
Courtney Critz: Uh-hmm.
Jeff Pearson: You home school your kids.
How did you guys find time to balance home schooling,
raising your kids and running your business?
And John, you did a lot of start-ups so you're busy working as well.
So how did you find time to balance, or how did you balance your schedule?
John Critz: Yeah, you know, I think I was working three client jobs...
Courtney Critz: At one point you had six when we started.
John Critz: Oh, I had six. Okay, yeah, it was more than I thought.
Courtney Critz: It was a lot.
John Critz: Yeah, one was in the connected car industry,
and was an email thing - just all these different things.
And so I would be up late doing that, and so what we would
do is we would do dinner,
we would do bedtime, get the kids down.
And then she and I would just sit together in the office.
And from about, I don't know, 9:30 until...
Courtney Critz: 3. John Critz: 2 or 3 in the morning, we would just work.
Courtney Critz: Work. So we had two days.
We had our day with our family, and then we had our business day in the wee hours.
John Critz: Yeah, and you know, we really looked at it as an investment.
I mean we saw the comp plan, we saw what was possible,
and we thought if we're going to invest in something,
this is a really good investment opportunity.
So that's how we looked at it from the beginning.
And we were like, you know, we're going to put time
and effort and energy into this, and we're going to build it.
And it was a season of a lot of hustle, and a lot of late nights.
And it wasn't easy.
But we saw it working, and we knew what it was leading to,
and so that was... that's what it looked like.
And I think that, you know, we had a very clear plan.
Like this is not forever, right? We're going to push hard,
and we have a plan, and we're going to execute it, and you know...
Courtney Critz: Had our spreadsheet of when we would be where.
John Critz: Yeah. And so, that was how we decided to do it,
and it was little sleep.
But we would tag-team.
I mean, you know, I would go to bed,
and she would stay up late, and then I would get up with the kids
and handle them, and she would sleep-in.
And you know, home schooling allowed us to have more of a flexible schedule.
And our schedule has never been very (chuckles) rigid.
We didn't really know what we would be doing on any given day,
and so it gave us the flexibility. And the kids were younger, and so...
Courtney Critz: They had less school than they do now.
John Critz: Right.
Courtney Critz: That wouldn't necessarily be possible at
the grade levels that they're at now.
John Critz: Right. Courtney Critz: But it was then.
Another thing I think too is, like he said,
I watched so many people and they just say,
"We'll see what happens when it happens."
We couldn't have wrapped our heads around making
that kind of sacrifice if that's where we were.
We had a timeline on this thing.
In my head, I could see a very clear,
"Let's make these sacrifices, because then freedom
is on the other side of this."
So we really had that vision very clearly in our head.
And one of the huge ones for me was,
so we home school in a cycle, and you go through it chronologically.
Well, in a few years, I knew we were coming up on the time of American history.
And I wanted, by that time, for us to be able
to travel for a month and do the East Coast,
and see all the places that we were learning
about with our whole family, with him not having to be at work,
and nowhere that we had to be.
That was literally just in my head every day when I did this.
Jeff Pearson: So you said that if they're really focused,
if someone's really focused on those right activities,
those right behaviors, they're going to grow, and see success.
So what have you found those to be?
What are those behaviors, those activities that you feel
like you should focus on to really see growth
on your team or in your organization?
Courtney Critz: Cultivating relationships is number one.
And people make a big deal out of online, in-person, it doesn't matter.
It does not matter to me where you are doing it.
You can be fully successful anyplace.
But you are going to be meeting new people,
spending time with them, getting to know them,
engaging in their lives, helping them trust you
and feel like that you care about them.
And then you're going to have to live the oil lifestyle in front of them.
Using products, learning about products is huge.
The fact that he did not nickel and dime me
about my ER order every month has everything to do with our success.
You know, money was tighter for us than it had been,
but he never told me not to order NingXia,
or we just cut in other places and bought that.
And I think he had the perspective that that was
a business investment as well as health investment, and that it mattered.
That's a big deal.
You have to be using your products.
And if you are, as you're meeting people and engaging with them,
they see it and they see you living it out,
and it's not hard to talk about it.
I think where people don't listen to you is when
it's not really your lifestyle, but then you try to talk to them about it,
and it doesn't feel authentic.
So building relationships, creating value.
You have to be someone that people see you living
a life that they want to be like in any way.
If your life has nothing in it that causes other people
to want what you have, then they don't want your product either.
So if you're in-person or online, griping, complaining,
sad, frustrated, scattered all the time,
it's going to be really difficult to enroll people
and bring them into your life.
If you have something that people get excited about,
then that's going to be a pretty simple process.
So I think if you're building those relationships,
and then you're interacting with those people on a regular basis,
you should always have the next thing,
the next encounter that you can invite someone to.
So if you interact with someone, then it shouldn't be,
"Yeah, we should talk about that sometime."
You either set up a one on one, or you have a class
on the schedule or you have a meeting on the schedule.
There should always be a, "So how about Friday the whatever?"
Always the next thing.
And one of the biggest mistakes people make is that
they just leave it kind of the next
contact will be when the person orders.
Well that's leaving it totally in their camp and you're helpless,
there's nothing you can do about that.
You have to bring it back into your court by the next
contact being you saying... well, even if it has nothing to do with oils.
"Let's just get together."
You have to keep that contact with people going
and going and going and let it lead to the enrollment.
But once the person is enrolled, connecting with them,
making sure they understand how the products connect to their needs.
Connecting dots for people is just so huge,
they don't connect them on their own.
So you have to connect our products to their needs.
Because they will really often be going to a store
and buying a product that we have something way
better to meet their need just because they simply
don't know that we have a better product.
And they've got an ER order and they're over here buying it,
and they just don't understand.
So you have to constantly connect those,
and then that leads to ER as a no-brainer.
If they're living the lifestyle you don't have to
convince anybody about Essential Rewards, it's totally automatic.
If they start taking supplements, ER is totally automatic.
So you don't have to work so hard to get people on that, it's just natural.
Really that's it. Relationships.
Enroll. Get people on ER.
And then the business comes naturally because
you just turn around and have them do the same thing.
And that's it. And we make it really complicated
and it's really not complicated. (Chuckles)
Jeff Pearson: Yeah, I think that's good.
I think it's important for people to hear how you work well together.
I don't always believe that husband and wife
should always do the business together.
John Critz: Right.
Jeff Pearson: I don't think it always works,
but in your case it feels like it's working very well.
So I think it would be cool for people to hear, John, what is your role?
What are you doing on a daily basis?
How are you supporting Courtney and how you guys work this out together?
John Critz: Yeah, you know, there's so much cross-over.
I mean, business boils down to kind of the same basic things, right?
And so I had so much experience in the corporate world,
and then moving into start-ups.
And so, there were so much that I could bring from my experience there.
And then into the oil business.
And so, you know, my role early on was business advice.
It was advice on how to scale.
You know, Courtney is so good at writing,
at relationships, at helping these people like
connect the dots and all of that.
And that's not my forte.
And so I never tried to be like her,
I never went and tried to teach classes.
They would've been terrible, right?
But my role and how I saw it was,
how can I take my skills and how can I support her,
and give her what she needs and allow her to do what she's good at.
And a lot of times that was me at home with the kids.
She was teaching classes all the time,
and flying down to Houston or driving down
to Austin or heading to somewhere, or locally.
And she would say, "Hey, I have another class,"
and I'd be like, "all right, I got the kids."
And it wasn't a begrudged thing, it was we had
the vision of, you know, this is a business opportunity
and we're going to treat it like that from an investment standpoint.
And so, you know, like in a start-up, you wear a lot of hats.
You're writing code one day, and then you're taking
out the trash the next day, and then you're picking up food.
I mean you're doing whatever it takes to ensure that the business is successful.
And so that is the vision and what we treated this
business as from the beginning, because it is a business.
And I think a lot of times for husbands,
they don't really see it as a business, they think it's just this little side thing.
But if you take it seriously, you know,
and invest in it like you would another business,
I mean, you know, huge opportunities.
And so I would do things from a technology perspective.
And my goal there was to just take pressure off of her.
And I was like, how can we use technology to free up
your time to do the things you're good at, right?
And so, because I mean, technology is great for that.
It can't replace the relationship, but it can take a lot
of the things out of, you know, all of the manual things
that you're doing, and just provide more space.
So I was always asking her things like,
"Hey, I see you doing this, can I help you, you know,
use some piece of technology or build you
some piece of technology that would help, you know,
take that time away from you or make that
more efficient so that it frees up your time."
So sometimes it was, "Yeah, that would be great."
And so I would help build something
or set some software up that already existed.
But then sometimes it would be like,
"No, I really have to spend time on that because
that is the relational aspect of this."
And I'd be like, okay.
You know, I won't try to make that more efficient, right?
And that's really the role I have continued to play.
You know, I talk - I know so much more about oils now.
I use them. I'm really into the science of it.
And so, you know, when I talk to guys it's more of the perspective of,
"Hey, let me tell you why oils make a lot of sense," right?
And you know, the chemistry of essential oils
and all of that is how I usually talk to people about it.
Courtney's gifts are very different than mine.
And so, us being together, doing the same activities is a terrible idea, right?
She needs to go and run -
Courtney Critz: Total waste of our time.
John Critz: Yeah, she needs to go run in the gifts that she has,
I need to go run in the gifts that I have.
But we're on the same page, and we have the same goal in mind.
And I think that's the thing is, we can be separated,
and we can be going different directions,
but we're actually heading the same direction because our vision aligns.
Courtney Critz: And I really just never like my heart
was never to pull him into this and for him to work
my business with me because this was my vision and my dream.
And I have been there with him while he's worked
his visions and his dreams for years, but he doesn't like,
"Hey, you need to come do this, and work on this or whatever."
Like this is what I'm excited about.
And so he could use the things he was excited
about like the tools, but the goal was to get him more
freedom to work on the things he was passionate about.
And he has all kinds of things all the time,
and he does spend a lot of time on things that help me,
but he also does all of the others too.
And I think when you try to pull in too hard
you just end up with resentment and frustration
because we aren't the same person,
and we don't want the same things.
But it doesn't mean that we aren't getting to do so much life together.
And he's been such a huge sounding board for me.
I think that maybe it's my personality or whatever,
but I just desperately need someone that I can just
say everything to, and verbalize everything
that I'm thinking through, and have him tell me,
"That's a good idea," or "that's not a good idea,"
or "you're a little too emotional about that," or whatever it is.
Because I can get in my head a lot and not move forward.
And his role is "go do something, it's good enough.
Go do it. It's good enough.
Start. It's good enough." You know?
And get on the other side of my perfectionism.
I just think people focus so much on trying to make
people be the same, and the whole beauty of it
is that we're nothing like each other
and that's what makes it amazing.
That's what makes us effective.
John Critz: Yeah. You know, I mean you think about
just all the different gifts she has,
and then I have completely opposite gifts.
But together, we make up, you know, a lot of different gifts.
And so if we're doing the things that naturally, you know,
come easy for us, or those gifts, then we can accomplish a lot more.
Jeff Pearson: So let's talk about that for one sec.
Obviously you guys have had a lot of success,
you've accomplished a lot in a really short period of time.
And there are things about you guys that make you amazing.
So I'm curious, I know we've touched on these things a little bit,
but what would you consider your super power to be?
What is that one thing that separates you, that makes you amazing,
that makes you successful?
So what is that for the both of you?
Courtney Critz: I think for me it's seeing people.
Like when I interact with someone, I see them.
I see their heart, and their passion.
Sometimes I try to see it before they see it.
I tell my team all the time, and my leaders,
"I'm here to see this until you do.
I see this for you, until you can.
I see you be amazing at this, until you can see it."
And that's the role I think that I play is to try to go into
people's lives and say, "I see your life and you being
so much more than what you're capable of seeing,
and I care, and I want to know,
and I want to remember what's going on with you.
And I don't care where you are in my organization,
and I don't care, you know, if you're what I need in
a leg right now or whatever it is,
I just want to develop a relationship with you,
and I want to see you be successful.
And honestly, I want to see you be successful at life first.
So if it's the time right now for this business,
that's great, and I will help you explore that."
But like I personally enrolled, and she enrolled
four years ago and was excited about the oils
and the business, has like a total miracle story with the oils.
And then life happened and they ended up adopting two children,
and moved to Africa as missionaries, and came back.
And now it's time for her to build the business.
And she just hit Senior Star.
And I'm insanely excited about that.
I'm insanely excited about her Senior Star,
and that now is the time for her.
And it wasn't then, and that was fine.
And we have stayed close, and interacted.
And I don't want her on my timeline,
I want her on her timeline, and I understand
that that looks different for everybody.
So not everybody wants to move at the pace I do.
And I'm really happy whether you are just a person
who loves your ER order or whether you're someone
who stays at Star for a really long time and just loves
to be involved in our community or whether
you hustle yourself all the way to RCD, I love you,
and I believe you have a full valued place on our team.
John Critz: Yeah, I think that's so right.
And I think so often, we hear a lot, it's like,
"How do you motivate Yellows in this business?"
Talking about the personalities.
And it's like, you want to motivate Yellows,
you connect relationship with the business.
Because you know, that is what drives Courtney.
It's not money, it's not status, it's not rank,
it's just can I speak into people's lives
and help them be successful in life?
I think that we measure the wrong things in life.
We measure with money, and cars and houses
and we call success these different things.
But I think, you know, the measurement is people, right?
It's relationship.
Our success comes from how many other people's lives we make better.
I think that is the ultimate measuring stick.
And so when we measure success,
like we want to look back and that be the tool
we use to measure, to determine success.
Jeff Pearson: Well, we thank you guys for everything you've done.
And if you look back at all the people you've impacted,
and I think you have almost 100,000 people on your team,
and if you think about their families and their kids,
you've impacted thousands and thousands and thousands of people.
So thank you for your leadership,
and thank you for the way that you share Young Living.
Thank you for being so good.
Last thing, in one word, how would you describe this Young Living experience?
And only one word.
Courtney Critz: It's freedom.
John Critz: She took mine.
♪ ♪
Deidrene Joyce: Thanks to Courtney and John, and Jeff
for joining us for today's episode.
You can follow Courtney on Facebook for well-written,
and inspiring thoughts and stories.
Fellow book lovers, I think you'll enjoy her references
and advice about being a life-long learner.
Be sure to like and subscribe to Drop of Inspiration
wherever you get your podcasts.
Until next time, I'm your host, Deidrene Joyce.
♪ ♪
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