So hey!  I’ve been doing Beautycounter for about a month now and have loved every minute… probably too much?  I need to set some better boundaries so I sleep more but it’s been a wild and wonderful ride!  I was asked to be part of a team meeting last night that was opened up to anyone interested in becoming a consultant so I feel it’s okay to share that here.  I appear nearly half way through the meeting but if you’re interested at all what the business looks like from the inside it is worth watching the whole thing.  And there is free enrollment with purchase of a startup set until the 8th.  So definitely worth looking at, or crunching the numbers if you like the products.  So… here is what I meant to say but the video shows the nervous nellie side of me a bit more!   Also, I was so nervous I threw my husband under the bus, who actually is a very capable and helpful husband who not only folds laundry, does clean up with me and is compassionate but takes care of our children’s whole morning routine because of my illness.  What I meant to say was that if I died there would be concerns for his health… Lol!  So, apologies, my love.  You are AMAZING!

I have always had health issues, food and skin sensitivity issues and was that granola girl in High School telling everyone that their makeup was going to age them.  I didn’t know much about the microbiome or autoimmune issues then but I knew that pretty much anything I put on my face burned my skin. A few years ago I very obviously developed Autoimmune disease but I only had it diagnosed last year.  I was doing a Hashimoto’s Protocol and some things had improved but I could only eat bone broth and select organic meats and fish and any slip up was dangerous.  I ended up in the E.R. for tachycardia and that’s when I threw up my hands and had to give my life and health over to God and look at the possibility that I might not be there for my family, and if I was, it might be a life very different from what I had imagined.  The next I day began to have insight into the root causes of my disease.  I did a 2 week environmental liver detox, which meant using no personal products and then reintroducing safe ones and starting supplements and… I felt better. This is when I first really looked at Beautycounter as it was one of the safe products listed in the protocol.

The thing that first caught me about Beautycounter is that all the women I saw applying it looked naturally beautiful instead of made up.  I finally pull the trigger on a few items I had had my eye on to replace the products I had THOUGHT were clean. The Environmental Working Group’s EWG Skin Deep Database helped with that, of course. I also saw Mary Darnall, the healing cave lady, on the consultant page and bought from her because I had been doing a version of her gut healing protocol and knew I could trust her.

I was impressed with the products and started reading more about Gregg Renfrew and the company.  What stole my heart was just how transparent and truly honest Beautycounter is as a company.  Accuracy is very important to me and I felt I could get behind a company that doesn’t make claims to things it has no control over, but does everything in its power to make safe products and bring about change.

I reached out to Mary and then her mentor, Heather, to see if becoming a consultant would be something I would like to start come summer when I had more time.  At this point we were in a very tough position and my husband’s company, which is a startup, had not been able to pay us—and still hasn’t since the end of last year.  We overdrafted our account and I thought, there is NO way I can start into this now.  But my spirit was not settled about that and I felt a pushing to keep pursuing it.  At about this point Heather Holland rocked up to my house with a basket of Countertime and left for vacation for a week.  On day four I could see a dramatic difference in my skin and I was sold.  I am not a salesperson by any means but I am an evangelist by nature and training and I knew I could sell this product, if nothing else.  I put a fleece of sorts out to God that went like this: Okay, if the money comes in randomly and not from our normal budget I’ll sign up.  I needed $98 and in the next couple days I had some friends and acquaintances contact me asking for my cultures and kefir grains and I had a random sale on Poshmark totaling $105.  I didn’t get it until I put the kit in my cart and the shipping brought it to $104.95.  Okay.  Words from on high.  This was definitely God’s doing.  Which leads me to my next point: overcoming fear.

My first fear was the time I have, which is not a lot.  I have the pickup lines at school, a couple mornings that do double duty with laundry, study, house cleaning and food prep, and I have the social times I spend with other moms at kids activities.  That has to be enough… and apparently it is!

The second fear was selling me: I have let fear hold me back with this food blog, thinking if I weren’t “put together” then I shouldn’t be making videos to post… which meant it never happened.  I decided that I needed to do this business as 100% myself, give it my all, and I had to push aside my discomfort with being in front of the camera instead of behind it and not try to be just like all the beautiful ladies who always look so lovely and put together.  Because 90% of the time I am NOT put together.  I am a sweaty messy bun mom and I live in leggings hoping for a 20-30 minute chunk of time in the day to get in a workout, because that is one of my key things to staying healthy and sane.  I am NOT the picture of the perfect skincare and beauty consultant.  I am a farmer and academic’s daughter and was raised not to give credence to beauty, even though I love beautiful things.  So my niche is health and my potential clients are like me: people with skin issues and autoimmune diseases and people concerned with health.  Knowing that, I made the decision fairly quickly to invest in the biggest consultant startup kits and in my first party I stocked up on everything else my most sensitive potential clients were interested in.  I had to press into the fear to do this because frankly I was worried about how long it would take me to pay it off.  But knowing who my people are made me realize it was the best avenue.

I felt like if I didn’t go all in it would be like a slap in the face of this gift.  I am a big introvert but a connector and spent a lot of years on the mission field getting over myself and choosing to push past my fears of speaking to people.  I am constantly making the choice not to listen to fear but to listen to my heart’s desire for people to be educated.  I am well acquainted with ‘NO’ but I take it as a seed planted that I can come back to.  Not everyone is ready to swallow the whole truth of toxic beauty. But if I continue to educate and speak the truth in love, I believe that my care for them will come through and the rest is up to them.  For this month I don’t know how I will do, but I keep reminding myself to do the tasks in front of me and to lean on the wisdom of the women who have plowed the way before me in this company, and to TRUST.  “Because neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God gives the increase.”  1 Corinthians 3:7

So that’s me… if you are interested in becoming a consultant please check out my beautycounter page and get in contact with me.  The new promo only lasts until Sunday, March 8th!

Peace, love and joy in who we are made to be,

Brenna xo