I see different languages. I know you all have different life stories, but more than anything, I see light. I see hope. And I see extraordinary potential. Now, as one of the founders of Nu Skin, I've had the privilege of over the last 42 years of watching this family grow. And in many ways, when I look out, I think of myself as the mother or one of the mothers of Nu Skin because I care deeply about your dreams. I take pride in watching you grow and I have seen the difference you can make in other people's lives. Now when we began Nu Skin, we had a vision of something greater than a company. We set out to be a force for good, a worldwide family united by the desire to improve lives around the world. And today, as you can see, if you look out, you can see that this vision is alive. Every person in this room has the potential to make life better. Not only for ourselves and our own families, but people that you may never have the opportunity to meet because that is both our opportunity and our responsibility. Because when thousands of individual lights come together, they do more than brighten up a room. They illuminate the world.
You know, this year I will turn seventy. Yes. Thank you, God. And as that milestone approaches, I've found myself reflecting on the many paths that my life's taken and the people that have shaped me, the choices I've made, and the moments when I found courage to take a step without knowing where it would lead. Now, not every path was straight. Not every decision was easy and certainly not every decision was perfect, but together I have to say that they were good because they brought me here to this beautiful place with all of you. And when I look across this room, I can't help but think about a little girl growing up on Long Island, New York. And that little girl was me. And I was always getting in trouble for daydreaming. Whether I was sitting at a dining room table or fishing with my dad, sooner or later I'd hear, 'Sandy, stop daydreaming.' But I couldn't stop. I just couldn't. Because even then, I sensed that life held possibilities. Yeah. Yeah. I'm able to see it. I had these big dreams and hopes inside of me. And over the years, I've learned that dreams are not simply distractions from life. They're the invitations to imagine what life could be. Dreams awaken our possibilities. But it is the decisions we make and the courage we find to act on them that turns those possibilities into reality.
Now at the age of 17 I left my home and family and went across country to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. And after that I would say that life moved very quickly. I met Craig Tillotson, fell in love, got married, started a family, and somewhere in the middle of that, graduated from college and walked across the stage, eight months pregnant, looking like a tent with a tassel. Within a couple of years, Craig and I had two beautiful little girls. And each morning I'd drop my children off at daycare while I went and taught other people's children. Craig worked on an oil rig. We were young. We were busy. We were always tired. And like many young couples, we just simply were doing our best to create a good life for a family that we loved. Now from the outside it probably looked like you know we were doing everything we were supposed to do and in many ways we were but those dreams were not happening. They were still there quietly waiting. Now perhaps some of you know that feeling. The place between where you are and where you imagine you could be. You have dreams. You have hopes. You work hard, but you aren't quite sure how to bridge that gap.
And then came an unexpected moment. My mother-in-law, Clara McDermott, my mother-in-law and mentor, I should add, had lost 50 lbs using a protein diet product. And the company asked her to become their first distributor. And she asked me to join her. Now, I need you to understand something. I don't know why she asked me that. I wasn't a salesperson. I didn't have a huge circle of friends, and we certainly didn't have any extra money to invest. I wasn't unusually qualified, and I was just simply a young mother who looked at this opportunity and said, 'What if?' And I said, 'Yes.' Eventually, Craig joined me. For the first time in my life, I felt like I'm an entrepreneur. I had built something of my own. There were financial rewards, recognition, trips, new experiences, but most importantly, I discovered that there were abilities within myself that I hadn't even known were there. We became very successful distributors. We made millions of dollars and those distant dreams didn't seem so distant anymore.
But then everything disappeared. The company due to corporate mismanagement was forced to declare bankruptcy. And we discovered this when we went to deposit our bonus check and it didn't clear the bank. Overnight, we lost our business, income, community, our careers, everything we thought we had built for a fantastic future. Now, this could have been the worst day of my life. Could have gone negative. Could have gone bitter. Could have blamed it on the industry. Could have blamed it on somebody. But instead, inside of me was still that little girl from Long Island who started asking, 'What if this was a turning point in my life?' This was where I was one decision away from a totally different life. My friend Nedra Rooney had been in my downline in the previous company and I said to her, 'What if we started our own network marketing company?' We believed there was an opportunity to create a better skin care product. Product with beneficial ingredients built around a simple idea. All of the good and none of the bad. We had enthusiasm. We had vision. And we had a great idea, but we had no idea how to start a company.
She said, 'Hey, my brother Blake Rooney just graduated with a degree in finance from BYU and is unemployed.' Great. Oh, and that brother Blake Rooney brought along his very good friend that he's a lawyer. He's handy, Steve Lund. And in June of 1984, we sat around a kitchen table in a condo in Provo. And Steve Lund asked us, 'What do you want to call your company?' Well, we already had the name Nu Skin. And he said, 'Well, that you got to have something else, you know, Nu Skin.' So, Nu Skin International. Now, we hadn't even left the kitchen, but we were already thinking about you all. I was a 28-year-old mother of two and we had no idea what laid ahead. But we had bold dream, fierce determination and a belief and a trust in one another. One kitchen table, one daring decision, and a dream that would change everything.
We set out to identify every ingredient known to be good for the skin. And we became the first company, by the way, to add humectants like NaPCA to our formulas. We searched the world and finally found a manufacturer that would manufacture the product for us and give us 90 days to pay for it. And our first products arrived in big 5-gallon containers. And we went up to Salt Lake City and bought jars and bottles and labels. And we hand-labeled and we hand-spooned the product. We were product development, fulfillment, sales, the back office, and customer service. By days, we filled, labeled, packed, and shipped. By night, we held meetings and demonstrated the difference of our product by laying people on the floor and applying a half-face demonstration of our state-of-the-art products. And by the way, we talked to everyone we met. You couldn't have passed by me without hearing about Nu Skin. We didn't have a computer, email, a website, social media. All we had was a belief, determination, and a spoon. And that spoon became a symbol of something I want everyone here to remember. You don't need everything figured out before you begin. You don't need the perfect plan, the biggest network, or unlimited resources. You just need a dream, the courage and the belief in yourself and this opportunity to start and the determination to use whatever is in your hands.
Now, 42 years later, from that PO box in Provo, Utah, that I would stop in to pick up our orders with checks, Nu Skin's grown into a community reaching into 49 countries around the world. We have technology. We have tools. We couldn't even imagine what happened. But let me tell you something important. Never confuse the tools with what creates success. Because who creates the success is people. People who are willing to begin. People are willing to keep going when it gets difficult. And people that never ever quit. People that believe in each other. 42 years I've been here and I have seen tremendous growth. I've watched people succeed and I've watched them fail. I've watched ideas succeed spectacularly and then some of our ideas fail. I've watched you think changed, watched the world change and I've changed too. My two children grew to four children. And just like in network marketing, you build a good front line, you get a good second line. 10 grandchildren.
Now, there was a time when I think of myself as a mother of Nu Skin. But recently and honestly lately, I've realized something. Many of you here today weren't even born in 1984. So now I have become, well I've been promoted. I'm the grandmother of Nu Skin. And just like any grandmother, I am very proud of my family. There are 1 billion reasons why I'm proud of my family, but I'd like to share just a few of them with you. First of all, you are a worldwide force for good. Steve just mentioned the good that we're doing. 900 million meals. We've reached across borders, cultures, and generations to lift the life of others. Remember that behind every one of those 900 million meals is a human story, a child. This is what success can do for us. It gives us the opportunity more than just to change our own lives. It gives us the privilege of using what we've built together to change someone else's. Secondly, we succeed by helping other people succeed. Now, I love competition and I love to win. But you know what I love more? I love watching someone else win. I like watching another person discover that they can win, too. For 42 years, I've watched people in this business reach out a hand and say, 'Come with me.' We teach, we mentor, we share, we encourage, and we celebrate other people's success. Because here, your success does not diminish mine. Your success multiplies all of ours. That's why we work like a team. And family means something here. Your dreams belong here.
And third, what I treasure most, we are a community motivated by love. I have watched you surround people that are hurting. I've seen leaders step forward to mentor affiliates who suddenly found themselves alone. I've watched successful people share the very systems that gave them success with people that they would have no benefit from because they wanted someone else to rise. That is what Nu Skin is at its very best. Together we rise. And so I bring back this little girl from Long Island after all these years and I still say dream and I still wonder what if and today I'm asking you what if with me. I love to say pretty much every day of my life the best is yet to come. I don't know what it's going to be but it's going to be good. What if your greatest chapter hasn't happened yet? What if the person sitting in this room wondering, 'Oh, maybe I don't know.' What if you're here so that you can change thousands of other people's lives? What if your story is not so different from mine? I didn't begin with special qualifications or great wealth or a huge network. I began with a family to support, bills to pay, children to raise, a willingness to work, and a dream that just would not leave me alone. So, if you sometimes doubt yourself, if the future seems uncertain, if you're wondering, do I belong here? I want you to know you do. Your story belongs here. Your dreams belong here. And each and every one of your contributions matter because I know something today that I didn't really know as that little girl staring off in the distance. I know that dreams are wonderful places to begin. But then you have to get up. You have to move. You have to work. You have to believe when there isn't yet any evidence that you should believe. And sometimes when everything you have built goes away overnight, you have to get up and dream again. So keep dreaming. Keep moving confidently in the direction of your dreams. Keep reaching out your hand and helping someone else rise. Keep love as your motivation and keep being a force for good. Stay close to this remarkable Nu Skin family because we created it together. 42 years ago, we had a dream. We had each other and we had a spoon and look what we did with it. Now imagine what you can do with all the things you have today. And when you find yourself standing on higher ground because your dreams came true, reach back and bring others with you because that's how dreams become legacy and that is how lives change and that is how together we'll rise. Thank you.
