Sandie Tillotson and Steve Lund, Founders of Nu Skin in South Africa Team Elite Trip

Usually when we come to these events we have highly polished prepared speeches like that beautiful talk that Sandy just gave and it's all teleprompted and stuff. I didn't prepare a speech. I've been thinking about this for months what I would say to you today. But I just wanted to tell you a story. Because I have a story to tell. Great stories endure. The great stories of our civilization, of our culture, stories of love and of sacrifice, of loaves and fishes, of great deeds, of lives spent in pursuit of others' happiness. Those stories continue to be told from generation to generation. You just heard something of our story, the Nu Skin story. Nu Skin's story has a plot. And the question that all of us are asking ourselves, and that the people out there that you talk to every day will be asking themselves, is does that plot still persist? Is that plot, the Nu Skin plot, still current in this changing, disrupted society? I'll give you the inside baseball vision of this. I've thought about this a lot. It absolutely persists. So what's the plot of the Nu Skin story? Nu Skin is built on a foundation of principles. One of those principles is that everybody ought to have the privilege of having their own business. Now not everybody wants to do that. Some people will prefer to work for the government or for General Electric or Samsung or somebody like that. Or for Amazon or some version of internet expression. Some people will choose to do that. But some people want to run their own business, and by running their own business, they can take control of their lives and create their own ceilings and their own opportunities that are not being limited by the will of others who have supervisory over them. And people who run their own business tend to be more successful. The businesses tend to be more successful than people who don't. I have a good friend who owns a restaurant. And he told me once, he says, "I found that when I'm in the kitchen, we make money. We make a lot of money. And when I'm not in the kitchen, we don't make money." And because of employees, and they're all good people, and they're doing their best, but they just don't see the things that I see. And they don't go to the effort that I go to. They don't try as hard as I do. So for me to succeed, I've got to be in the kitchen doing the work. That's the burden of owning your own business. But the joy of owning your own business is that you're in control of your destiny. And so Nu Skin was created on that kind of threshold principle that everybody ought to have the privilege, the choice to have their own business if they want to. It's harder and harder in this world today to have your own business. Nu Skin offers that opportunity. The next element of our story, of our plot line, is that great people want great products. They want high-quality products. They want products that'll actually make them look and feel better. Things that will make them healthier, things that will make them more successful by exuding more beauty in their lives. People really want that. But the problem in today's society is that it's almost impossible to tell where to find those. If you go into a store, there will be a beautiful person standing behind the counter telling you that all of these products are fabulous. And they will all make you better people. And yet, some of them are much better than others. And none of them are as good as the products that Joe Change builds. And if you go online, think about that. You're being told that this product is better and more efficacious, it will make your skin healthier and your body healthier, by an avatar that doesn't have skin and doesn't have any body. It's a computer facsimile of a person giving you its testimonial that these products are great. I think the world is getting a little tired of that. Some of you are social media influencers. You are successful because people have come to know you and they trust you. But most of the world are going into the internet blindly, looking at strangers being told these are really great products, trust me, by a collocation of electrons that doesn't really exist in the real world. Think about that. I believe that the world's getting weary of that. We want authenticity in this world. And Nu Skin provides that opportunity. If you really want to know the truth about something, if I really want to know the truth about something, I go to a trusted friend. And my trusted friend will give me advice that I can count on. Not some stranger or some stranger's avatar. And so, that dynamic, that story, that plot line, that narrative of great products being sold by people we trust persists. It's no less cogent today, no less important, no less desirable, no less needed today than ever it has been. Maybe a third element to the plot line that is Nu Skin is our culture. And that very moving video that we saw, these videos, Clara talking and that description of what's going on in Malawi and in other places in the world speaks to our culture. When Blake first approached me, and I think Sandy had the same conversation in the early moments of the company when it was being described, we talked about the business opportunity, the quality of the opportunity that we were going to attract leaders by upgrading a compensation plan that could meet the opportunity costs of strong leaders. Because leaders lift. And leaders can carry us through good times and bad times and into a bright future. So we remain a leadership company. But he said we all will wear out if we're spending our time doing nothing but earning money. Money will only motivate us so far. People will do more for a cause than they will do for a check. Yes. We will do more for a cause. We belong to a very generous species, we human beings. We do care about each other. But most of the people that you know spend their lives thinking, "I hope that someday I can find myself in a position where I can fill in the blank." Go to Africa and help little children who are starving to lead better lives. Go to Asia and help blind people to see. Go to North Asia and help those who have cleft lips to live normal lives because of what I can do. Someday I hope that I can maybe do that. I'm going to work really hard in my profession and save enough money that someday maybe I can make a difference. Well, Blake's dream was that we have that become parts and parcels of our everyday living. That a portion of our virtuosity as business people and as leaders will go to benefit the human race in some way. Not in 50 years when we're middle-aged, but today, every day, a portion of what we do is going to be consecrated to the good will and the uplifting of people around us. And by having that be part of the DNA of our company, we're going to sell great products by teaching and training and taking each other up a little bit of an education curve to understand why it is these products are different and better. We're going to create a business opportunity that will allow people to take care of their families and take care of other people's families, too, through the income they generate, all wrapped inside of a culture. A culture of other people. Of participating in the human race's progress towards a better world through our daily activities. Now, that's our narrative. That's our plot. That's the story line. And you have people who compete with us, who are fighting for the minds and wills and attentions of talented people who will say, "No, that narrative is dead now. Somehow the internet has supplanted that opportunity." Well, you are here as testimony to the fact that nothing has been replaced. That plot line is ongoing. That it is as germane and pertinent and powerful today as it was in 1984 when we started doing this, in the 1990s we grew and grew, and in 2000 when we started the Force for Good program in earnest. We've been doing Force for Good things all along. It's as germane today as ever. Great leaders do great things. So, finally, great leaders build. Great leaders build. They go find other people and they share their vision. The thing that you do better than anyone I've ever met on this planet is you can teach a vision. And just because the people you're talking to do not initially have that vision doesn't mean that they won't embrace this plot line. Owning your own business is a wonderful thing. A world-changing thing. Having great products that truly do make a difference. Not just talk about making a difference, but actually have the best that science and nature can provide. And living in a culture that actually uplifts humanity. That is a business that's worth fighting for. That is a plot line that persists. That is a world that we would continue to run into. Thank you very much.