Gary Young's Blog

Mary Young has said many times that success has nothing to do with personality, it's about having a burning desire.

When you’ve been raised a certain way—you know it can be a limitation. When you realize that you were never complimented, you also know it might be difficult for you to compliment people. Then you remind yourself that you have to compliment more frequently until you develop that habit. A lifetime later, I still have problems complimenting people, so I have to work at that.

We all have these little things that can limit our success. Learn to write them down and then learn how to overcome them by going the extra mile. And folks, we can! I could sit back and say, “My dad never complimented me. I can’t compliment anybody, so I’m a failure.” All of us have all the excuses in the world to fail, and that’s the easiest thing to do: fail.

Attitude is your emotional approach to life. It is the framework through which you see events, see other people, and even see yourself. Attitude is very, very important.

Others may say the key is personality or strategy. I’ve heard Mary talk many times when she’s been giving presentations about building a business. She says success has nothing to do with your personality; it’s about having a burning desire.

I’ve seen people that absolutely swore they couldn’t sponsor someone into Young Living, and yet they can give you a sales pitch about their home like nobody’s business! So what made the difference? Their attitude

This photo of Gary is with one of his horses at the balsam and cedar harvest. Many years ago, when he was cutting hay with a team of horses for his father, he received the one and only compliment his father ever gave him.

The single most important ingredient in the formula for success is knowing how to get along with people. Without it, most achievements are not possible, and even what we do achieve will feel hollow. Show gratitude to the loyal people in your inner circle today.

This is an area in my life that I have to really work at, because I get so dialed in to what I’m doing that sometimes I don’t take the time to back up and really show gratitude and appreciation to some of my closest people. I know that part of the reason why is because of what I’ve had to deal with in my life.

The only compliment my father gave me was when I was 9 years old. My sister Nancy’s father-in-law lived down the canyon from us, and he bought a tractor that later broke down. He came up to the farm where I was out in the field cutting hay with the team. Dad was bringing out my lunch and another team, and we were changing teams as this man came by. He said, “You know, my tractor broke down and I’ve got hay that I’ve got to cut, or I’m going to lose it.”

Dad said, “Yeah.”

So he said, “Well, I was wondering if I could hire your boy to come and cut hay for me.”

My dad thought about it and said, “As soon as Gary’s finished with this field, I suppose he could come down and cut your hay. But it’ll cost you the wages of five men.”  That’s the only compliment he ever gave me in my life.

Today we learn how to change our paradigm and become who we were meant to be.

Romans 12:2 tells us to be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. What does that mean? This is called changing your paradigm. Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire. Renew your mind and change your paradigm. It sounds simple, doesn’t it, but it’s a process that takes work.

Will we have times when we will succeed at it, and will there be times when we may not succeed at it? The answer is “yes.” Always keep your notes where you can go back and review them. That again is your rear sight: knowing what you don’t want.

You may be thinking, “I guess I really need to make a decision. What do I want to do right now?” That question changes the paradigm.

How many of you know right here, right now, right today what you want? Write it down. When you’ve got more time, then write down the blueprint for it. You may not know exactly the size and the footage and how many yards of concrete you’re going to need, but as you write down the blueprint for what you want, it will become clear to you.

Romancing the positive in life also means romancing the positive in our relationships. Gary explains, "Mary doesn't romance houseplants, she romances me."

We are all attached to what we don’t want, because it’s a negative. What you romance, you keep. It’s like a flower. All of you have had houseplants. If you water them, they survive; if you don’t water them, they die. Mary doesn’t romance houseplants, she romances me.

But what do we find ourselves doing? We romance the negative side of our lives and create more of it. I’ve watched hundreds of marriages where people romance the negativity in their relationship, and they make it bigger and bigger and bigger. And if you ask them what they don’t want, they can’t tell you. They can tell you what they want, but they don’t know how to get it until they understand what they don’t want.

This is why I said to write it down and become very clear on what you don’t want. You need to write it down and put it up on your mirror in your bathroom and on your refrigerator, wherever you can see it throughout your day. If you’ve got a job and you work in an office, then put a note about the thing that you don’t want on the wall of the office. Do this until it starts to bug you to the point that you can’t stand looking at it. And after you’re fed up looking at it, then you can start looking at what you do want. Then write it down and put it beside the negative.

You see, in order to create a paradigm shift, you’ve got to get angry. You’ve got to be angry at what you don’t want, because it takes this emotion to move you out of the rut.

Gary loves to talk to YL distributors. But he is amazed that many times if they have a specific question to ask him, they will not have a pen or paper in their hand! If they don't write down the answer, what is their real intent?

Every single person reading this who wants to be successful needs to write a minimum of 30 minutes a day. It’s going to do two things for you. One, it’s going to start you on the road to success. Two, it’s going to create a paradigm shift in you. And three, it will align you with the universe. These are all the things that will take you to success.

I always smile when people ask me what to do for their mother, their aunt, their uncle, their cousin, and they don’t have a pen or a paper in their hand. So what is the real intent? I want you to write this down: the dullest pencil is sharper than the brightest mind. Always write, write. This is extremely important!

Maybe you need to ask yourself, “What do I want and where do I want to go with this business?” That’s after what we started out with what you don’t want, because it’s more important to know what you don’t want than it is to know what you do want. Knowing what you don’t want is vital. Once you know that, then you can start lining up on what you do want.

And this is where I see people fail all the time, because they do not know what they don’t want. I counseled with husbands and wives for 30 years about their marriage, their health conditions, and their problems that have created compromise in their marriage. It’s absolutely shocking to me and it’s what really opened my eyes, when I sat with a couple and talked to them and said, “What don’t you want in your marriage?” And they said, “Uh, uh,—well, I know what I want in marriage.” No, no, no! What don’t you want? You can’t change things if you don’t know what you don’t want.