Stories From a Dedicated Career ft. Kelly Case

Thank you, it's great to be here.

Thank you for using my fancy title. I am the Chief of Staff to your mom, Mary Young. I started at Young Living 22 years ago in marketing, and I kind of had this evolution that eventually led to me working as an executive assistant to your dad and to your mom. You were just a wee little baby, living in Ecuador. Several years ago, your dad wanted to promote me to Chief of Staff. I had the same question—I didn't know what that meant. It just means I'm more involved in strategic discussions, more of an advisor to him and now to your mom. I join a lot of their meetings and can have a voice on the board. So it's just a little more involved than what I did prior.

Yes, that is true. I still have two phones to this day because I don't know how to get rid of one of the numbers. I had actually quit, resigned from Young Living, and was at home for nine months. One day my phone started ringing and it said Gary Young. I thought, I am not answering that—I'm staying home, I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom. Curiosity got the best of me, and I finally took his call after he called several times. He asked me to come back and be his assistant. He said, 'I live in Ecuador, it's too hard for me to try and find people if I need something done. I need one phone call.' So I said okay. He said, 'I don't care if you're at home, with your kids at the park, you can be anywhere as long as you answer the phone.' That was a gift he gave me—I got to be a mom first but also be on this wild adventure with him. At first I didn't have two phones, but after a while he said, 'I need a dedicated line. Go buy a phone and I'll pay for it, and that will be my line—only I can call you on that line.' That started the two phones. My cell phone number was on his business cards, so that number is out there. I can never get rid of it. He often called at 2 or 3 in the morning, so I started sleeping with my phone under my pillow because I wanted to hear him but didn't want to wake my husband. When he would call, it was just enough to wake me up, and I'd go out and take the call. It usually resulted in changing flights because instead of going to India he wanted to go to South Africa, or he'd forget about the time zones and miss his flight.

The first time I met your dad was an adventure. I had been working with the company for probably three or four months, and he had been traveling so I hadn't officially met him face to face. He planned an employee outing called Snow Camp and took us all snowmobiling. He didn't do anything halfway. We get out there, he's throwing employees on snowmobiles who've never snowmobiled before. We went up this trail to the bottom of the most epic sledding hill you've ever seen. He had it set up like a small city—tents, fires, cooking chili and turkey dogs, inner tubes blown up and ready to go. Experienced drivers gave people rides to the top of the hill, you'd slide down on the tube, then get a ride back up. I'd gone a couple times, and your dad pulled up on a snowmobile and said, 'Hop on.' I didn't know any better—Jacob, you're laughing because it's not a good idea to get on the back, but it's great fun if you love snowmobiling. So I got on, holding on with one hand and a giant tube in the other. He took off full throttle straight up the hill. I jumped and grabbed on, he starts laughing, catches air at the top, and I almost flew off. He didn't stop at the top—he kept going. At one point I thought, 'It's my life or this inner tube,' so I let go of the tube and grabbed on with both hands. He thought it was so funny. He turned around, got the inner tube, and took me back. I said I'm going to tell everybody not to ride with you. That was my introduction to Gary Young.

I did go snowmobiling with him several times after, but I never rode on the back of his snowmobile. I would announce to everybody as soon as we got there, 'Don't ride with Gary.' He'd laugh and say, 'No, ride with me—it's fun, she's just a chicken.'

I would say my most memorable story would be when we went to Egypt and Jordan filming The One Gift. I had the privilege of taking my husband with me. Gary said, 'We need lots of helping hands on the trip, so bring Lorenzo.' We had to fly in a bit later than the group. Gary said, 'Don't worry, I'll take care of everything. When you arrive in Egypt, someone will pick you up and bring you straight to our filming location.' So we land in Egypt, you're out on the tarmac in the middle of the desert. There's a gentleman holding a sign with my name on it. He just waved, opened the door to a car, hurried us in, and took off in the opposite direction of the bus. My husband and I thought, 'Is this how it ends? Are we being kidnapped?' We pull up to a building, he ushers us inside, sits us down, asks for our passports. We're in trouble. Everyone's shouting in another language. After about 15 minutes, they come back, wave to us, we follow them, bypass security and all these lines, and outside is our luggage on a cart. They waved us into a van. It was a VIP arrival. It was so funny and set the stage for that trip.

Yes, I remember very vividly people shouting in Arabic and Egyptian all the time, not understanding what was going on. It was very hot. At one point we were filming in the desert, and you and Joseph and your dad were on horses leading the caravan. Gary looked back at me and said, 'I want horse camel camel camel horse,' and then they started going, and my husband and I were running through the hot desert trying to get the camels in line. It was pretty funny. I'm sure there's video of that somewhere. That was a great adventure.

That's so funny. Yeah, we also encountered a sandstorm when we were in Egypt, and that one started to blow in. All the guides started yelling for everyone to get in the tent to take cover. We were all holding onto the posts because the tent was about to pick up and blow away. Members were singing and chanting. It was intense, but looking back, it's a great experience.

Well, working for your dad was an adventure. No two days were the same. I used to jokingly say, if you've seen The Devil Wears Prada, it was a bit like that—he would make requests and I'd think, how am I going to make that happen? But somehow we always did, and afterwards I'd feel great. Also, the community—Young Living is like a family. How do I leave? I've watched you and Joseph grow up. I love your mom and dad. Young Living is an extension of my own family, and the people here and in the community—I could never find that somewhere else.

I've described convention as a giant family reunion. We're offering virtual and in-person, but unless you physically can't make it to Utah, there's nothing like the connections you have in person. One of the most fun memories year after year is your dad's great openers. My favorite opener of all time had to be Indiana Young. We had a video of your dad dressed as Indiana Jones going through obstacles, culminating with a stunt double running out on stage and down through the audience. My role was to kneel on the track and make sure a giant boulder didn't fly off into the audience. It was fun. The sets were made of styrofoam carved and painted to look like rock.

Asking me to choose a favorite product is like asking me to choose a favorite child. There is a favorite child, but you don't talk about it publicly. I have a slight addiction to Thieves lozenges. Your mom will even walk into meetings and drop a handful next to me. Your dad used to tell me to take it easy on the lozenges, but I love them. My current obsession is a product coming at convention—I can't talk about it yet, but it's become part of my morning routine. I'm out and need to beg the R&D team for more test supply. I also love Sulfurzyme, CBD Beauty Boost, Blue Tansy, and Highest Potential. I use Highest Potential every day—it's my daily cologne. And I'm healthily addicted to Zing. Don't tell your mom—I had four today, but you're only supposed to take one because of 35mg of caffeine. It's been a long day and we have a new puppy, Harley.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I hope to have you back, but Cole promised that if I did this, you'd never have to come back. But didn't you like being here? It was so fun. So you'll just have to come back on your own.