with Stephanie Myers

Becoming an industry trendsetter in a saturated market is no small feat, but that’s exactly what Stephanie Myers has accomplished. She has turned the travel industry on its head by daring to think differently and challenging the status quo.

In this episode, we delve into Steph’s journey and discuss the steps she took to shake things up in an industry that has often been dominated by big players and resistant to change. If you’re a solopreneur wondering how one person can make a difference, this conversation is for you!

We chatted about:

• The ability to swiftly pivot and adapt in response to changes in the business landscape.
• Leveraging your unique skills and knowledge to stand out from the crowd and make a name for yourself.
• The importance of having a supportive network (mentors, a therapist, etc) to provide guidance and emotional support during challenging times.
• Spotting gaps in the market and creating products and services that genuinely address customers’ needs and desires.
• The importance of establishing boundaries, setting your own rules, and prioritizing personal and professional relationships.
• The debilitating fear of not delivering on promises, especially in high-stakes situations like a sold-out event.

This episode is guaranteed to inspire you and spark ideas for creating change and making your mark in your own industry.

RESOURCES:

Travel Trend Summit 2024 – located on the Gold Coast Australia, May 2024

Travel Agent Masterclass – Create a Personal Brand That Skyrockets Your Travel Business and Positions YOU as the Authority in Your Niche

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Bio:

Steph is a digital influencer and mentor in the travel industry, who is only going from strength to strength. After rising out of the ashes during the pandemic from being an independent travel business owner with a casual job in a surf shop to releasing an international ranking podcast, ‘Unplug In Paradise’ which caught the industries attention at a time where ‘travel’ was way worse than any swear word you could find in the dictionary.

Steph then went onto throwing every last cent she had towards a group coaching program to learn how to birth her online program, ‘Travel Agent Runway’ to help arm her industry pals with the tools, tech and strategy to build their own travel brand and digital influence in the online space to future proof their business.

After working purely in an online capacity, Steph soon realised something was missing. She missed people in her industry and being a solo-mumma, she desperately needed to find a way to have that real life connection.

In 2023, Steph launched the inaugural Travel Trend Summit, the ultimate one-day live event experience for digitally savvy and aspiring travel business owners to create their own stand out travel brand.

She had names such as Canva attend the event and a screaming encore to tie off the day meant she was in for the long-haul when it comes to event creation.

So this is where we are, heart-deep in planning the program for the 2024 Travel Trend Summit being held again on the Gold Coast, all while recently taking out the highly esteemed Women In Travel awards as Mentor of the Year, Steph is a woman on a mission.

You can connect with Steph:

Instagram: @stephaniemyers.academy

Podcast: Unplug in Paradise

———————————

CONNECT WITH AMANDA:

Instagram: @iam_amandahunter

Website: https://amandahunter.net

WORK WITH AMANDA:

1. Private Coaching – A high-touch 1:1 container to help you cultivate magnetic confidence; grow your business in a way that feels good; and create a legacy worthy of remembering.
2. Breakthrough Intensive – A two week intensive to get to the core of and unravel your limiting beliefs and sabotaging behaviours so you can get on with creating the impact you’re here to make.
3. Whitespace – A six week experiential journey to reconnect to your inner wisdom, reclaim your unique magic and reignite your leadership.

FREE GIFTS:

1. The only thing standing between where you are now and where you want to be is YOU. Download the Slay the Self-Sabotage cheat sheet to uncover your deepest, darkest limiting beliefs and put a stop to them. 
2. Schedule a FREE 15 minute Vibe Session to see if we’re an aligned fit and discover how we can best work together.

Big love,

Amanda xo

P.S. If you loved this episode, please review and share with another feminine luminary who needs to hear this!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Steph: I feel like deep down that’s my mission in life is to be so different than I’m actually

[00:00:05] Steph: myself but when it comes to my ideas in this business, the model just didn’t suit me. And I thought, okay, well these are falling on deaf ears. No one’s got the imagination of creativity that I do. So I thought, well, it’s time to go.

​[00:01:00] Amanda: Hello, my love and welcome back to the feminine luminary podcast. I am really excited to bring you today’s guest because it’s a little bit different to normal. But what I’m wanting to show you and to really allow to shine through is this guest. She is the embodiment of what leadership is all about.

[00:01:19] Amanda: And what she’s doing is she’s daring to shake things up in an industry, which is so of mean dominated by the B players and quite resistant to change as well. My guest today is Stephanie Meyers and she’s an absolute powerhouse in the travel industry. Having risen from the ashes of the pandemic to create this internationally ranked podcast, launch her own online course travel agent runway. And after realizing that she had this deep need for a real life connection, which so many of us do, she went on to launch the travel trend summit, which is this one day event for digitally savvy travel business owners. And not only this in 2023, she was actually recognized as [00:02:00] the mentor of the year at the women in travel awards.

[00:02:03] Amanda: So, as you can say, Steph is. on an absolute mission to make lasting impact in the travel industry.

[00:02:08] Amanda: As I said. this episode is a little bit different as we take a journey through her story and get to see how she has actually embodied that leadership. And she continues to evolve and up level every step along the way. Steph is definitely one to watch in the travel space. And I cannot wait for you to listen into our conversation.

[00:02:26] Amanda: Let’s dive in.

[00:02:26] Amanda: Steph, welcome to the Feminine Luminary Podcast. I am so

[00:02:30] Amanda: excited to have you on the show.

[00:02:32] Steph: It’s amazing to be here. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Amanda. I’m so psyched.

[00:02:37] Amanda: Yeah, because we’ve actually known each other for quite a few years now. We were involved in a particular group program together, and that’s how it all started and that I’ve been following your journey along there and just watching you go from strength to strength. And in particular, you actually were the Women in Travel Awards mentor the year last year, which is absolutely epic.

[00:02:57] Amanda: So congratulations

[00:02:58] Amanda: on that.

[00:02:59] Steph: Oh my gosh, I don’t even think I’ve properly celebrated it yet. It just feels like it’s, you know, this win that’s just happened and it’s such a huge, massive milestone in my career. But yeah, I don’t think the novelty has worn off yet.

[00:03:15] Amanda: Yeah, and that’s okay. We’re allowed to take the time to celebrate these things as long as we do actually celebrate because it is something that is so powerful. It’s something that really should be, just, should be rewarded for the work that you do, the what you’re doing in your industry as well, because you actually are, are one of the forefronts in your industry.

[00:03:35] Amanda: And we’re gonna come into that a little bit more as we go into your story. But before we do that, I’d love to know what is it that makes you and your

[00:03:42] Amanda: work luminary?

[00:03:44] Steph: Good question. I really love this one. I suppose, because I’ve always been in the travel industry and I had an opportunity to pivot completely, but in a time [00:04:00] where, you know, the travel industry was in dire straits, things weren’t looking good. You know, the easier option was to just pull out altogether and pivot and go straight to another industry. Whereas I feel like I had. So much love and passion for travel, and also my colleagues that I. I had the resilience and courage to pivot, but inside an industry that was just like a complete disaster zone. So yeah, being able to have the courage to be able to do that and then provide support and love and. Just be that person where people can kind of come to if and when they’re ready to work on their business and start bringing themselves out of the Stone Age. So I feel like that’s my special power is like, I feel like I’m a connector between like what’s happening in the real world versus. You know, what the travel industry has been doing for, you know, decades that’s completely outdated. But also having the insane abil ability to see beyond what people are currently achieving. So I feel like that’s makes me

[00:05:13] Steph: luminary and quite, you know,

[00:05:16] Steph: The same for what it is that I do with my biz.

[00:05:18] Steph: So, yeah.

[00:05:19] Amanda: there is so much in there that I’ll just like, oh, that piece, that piece, that piece. I wanna pick it all apart. But I mean, for those of you who are listening and, and don’t know when Steph was actually going through this, so this is during, was it

[00:05:30] Amanda: 2020 in the middle of Covid where

[00:05:33] Amanda: travel.

[00:05:34] Steph: Yep.

[00:05:35] Amanda: Yeah, it wasn’t really happening. It was an industry that pretty much was just like stopped dead in the water and everyone was going, oh my gosh, what do I do from here? It was such a time of uncertainty, and I think this is when, not just in travel, but in so many different industries, this is where there was that opportunity for leaders to really stand up and to rise up because people were churning around going.

[00:05:58] Amanda: What am I doing? I [00:06:00] dunno where to look. And so people were like yourself, Steph, who were actually able to go, you know what? I know deep in my gut that this is what I wanna do. Like I have such a passion for this business. I have such a passion for this industry and the people that are part of my community.

[00:06:14] Amanda: I’m gonna be that person that rises up and, and steps forward as that leader to show them the way to hold them, that when they’re uncertain and to essentially come out the other side, which is what you’ve done when no one else is brave enough to do that. So, absolutely, that is what makes

[00:06:30] Amanda: you luminary.

[00:06:31] Amanda: That’s pretty much the

[00:06:32] Steph: Aw,

[00:06:33] Amanda: of a

[00:06:33] Amanda: luminary leader.

[00:06:34] Steph: I just got the little shiver down my spine.

[00:06:37] Amanda: I love that. And so what is your background? Like, how did you actually get into this work? You weren’t always in travel,

[00:06:43] Amanda: were you?

[00:06:44] Steph: Well, yeah, I’ve been in travel for 16 plus

[00:06:47] Steph: years,

[00:06:47] Amanda: my gosh.

[00:06:48] Steph: so

[00:06:50] Steph: actually I started off, you know, just weekend job. I was in a surf shop and then I was the president of our local board riders club and I was organizing events for the local area like I was. 18 years old, the president of our board writer’s club. I was a really good person to actually have in the committee as well as being president. Like, who the hell takes on that role at 18 years old? I’m just kid myself. Right?

[00:07:17] Amanda: Looking back it’s like, what were we thinking? But it’s

[00:07:19] Amanda: so good that you did.

[00:07:20] Steph: That’s right. Well, it taught, it taught me leadership. It taught me that I really loved doing events and doing work in the community, and even though it was volunteer, it was. A really good thing, a positive thing to bridge the gap between our youth and because I was already in the surf shop, I could then invite them onto like our monthly surf competitions at the beach and things.

[00:07:44] Steph: So that was really fun. I then decided that I wanted to study at tafe, so I thought, oh, I’ll do. Tourism ’cause someone at the surf shop told me I’d be good at it. So trusting that stranger, I decided to go and study [00:08:00] tourism and from there it just blossomed. But the course that I actually enrolled in, I didn’t realize it was like travel related.

[00:08:10] Steph: Like I knew it was travel, but I didn’t, I thought it was more events related because they’re all so intertwined. I started doing it and because I grew up on the beach with kisses and cuddles, I’d never been on a plane, I’d never been on holidays. I grew up in the Byron Shire. That is a holiday destination in itself.

[00:08:27] Steph: I’d never been anywhere, but here I am studying this course where I’m constructing air tickets from scratch. I have no idea where any of these cities are ’cause my geography was limited to. Basically just Australia. Which there I had never explored either, so it was very,

[00:08:43] Amanda: Definitely throwing yourself in the Defend.

[00:08:46] Steph: So it was a little bit hard to get a hot grasp of, and I thought, what the hell did I enroll myself into?

[00:08:53] Steph: This is, this is crazy, but I really expanded. On that. And I really fell in love with the world and I had such incredible teachers. And yeah, just the inspiration and motivation to wanna learn more of the industry. And once I left, I was a full blown travel agent and I could take my, oh, not a full blown travel agent.

[00:09:13] Steph: Not, not yet until you work in the industry, but I could take my certification anywhere in the industry because tourism is so broad. I could literally go anywhere. So I thought, okay, well let’s start off in travel. ’cause this is something that I really feel like I’ve lacked in considering when, you know, assignments and things come up and I have to make, pretend, you know, design a trip that I wish I went Todd, rather than a trip that I

[00:09:40] Amanda: Living vicariously through your

[00:09:42] Amanda: assignments.

[00:09:42] Amanda: I love it,

[00:09:43] Steph: I was like, oh, this is a

[00:09:45] Steph: trip. I wish I did.

[00:09:48] Steph: So it was it was quite interesting. But yeah, from

[00:09:51] Steph: then I went into travel and I started off in the backpacker sector. Fell in love 22,000 times a day. Bit hard not to, [00:10:00] and then I went into mainstream and yeah. Fell in love with, you know, mainstream travel and cruising and all of the things.

[00:10:09] Steph: And then I decided to work for myself, which was later in the journey, which is where we’re at now.

[00:10:14] Amanda: yeah. And so what was it that made you decide to transition from working for someone else

[00:10:19] Amanda: to, to working for

[00:10:20] Amanda: yourself?

[00:10:20] Steph: Okay. I had. Thought at the time that I had really, really good ideas for the business. Like different things that we could do to bring people in, how we could, you know, have different film nights, how we could collaborate with our suppliers. Like different things that we could do. And you know, at the time my brain was like firing along.

[00:10:41] Steph: I’ve been in this industry for a long time. How can I, how can we like be quite different, you know? And I think this difference. Comes about like I’m an identical twin. So growing up with an identical twin, always being treated same. You are always striving to be recognized, to be different. So I feel like deep down that’s my mission in life is to be so different than I’m actually

[00:11:05] Steph: myself, you know? But when it comes to my ideas in this business, the model just didn’t suit me. And I thought, okay, well these are going falling on deaf ears. No one’s got the imagination of creativity that I do. So I thought, well, it’s time to go. Can’t be here. I feel like it’s

[00:11:22] Steph: stunting my growth and there was no

[00:11:24] Steph: opportunities for me.

[00:11:25] Steph: So I left and I started my own travel agency.

[00:11:28] Amanda: Yeah, so you’ve always had that entrepreneur entrepreneurial mindset and Yeah, if it’s just not being listened to, like you could listen to your gut, you know, it’s time. It’s time to move on. And I think this is something that quite often we do is it holds us back because it seems so scary. It’s this big step, but it’s just having that trust, deep trust in yourself and that self-belief to be able to then take that leap and knowing that, you know what?

[00:11:53] Amanda: It’s gonna work out. If I put myself, throw myself into

[00:11:57] Amanda: it, it’s gonna work out. And

[00:11:59] Amanda: so that’s what you did?[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] Steph: And you’ve gotta have a bit of imagination too, because it’s not enough just to trust yourself. You’ve gotta have imagination that you

[00:12:09] Steph: can actually do the thing and envision yourself doing

[00:12:13] Steph: all of these things, but leaving enough space open for other opportunity to flood in. And that’s. Exactly what happened.

[00:12:21] Steph: Yeah.

[00:12:21] Amanda: Yeah, exactly. Oh, so you talk about like this flirting with big ideas in business, and I mean, this is just the beginning of your story really. You’ve gone from strength to strength with the different things that you’ve actually brought into your business. So when you started working for yourself, what was this?

[00:12:38] Amanda: Was this more of a traditional travel industry or like. Is that what it was? Because I know now that you are more into the mentorship and you’re build helping other travel agents build other systems, and as you said, go from the dark ages into modern times. How did you

[00:12:55] Amanda: step into that?

[00:12:57] Steph: Okay. Well, I feel like when I started my travel agency, I was, I went into a host agency that was completely branded, and every single person who worked under that umbrella were repping the same colors. They were repping the same logo, they were repping the same business model, the same name, everything. And I thought, okay, well, there’s nothing. There’s no real point of difference here. How are we standing out? No one’s recognizing me For me and my unique skillset, which is

[00:13:26] Steph: from the experience that I can gladly say I’ve made up for in the travel world, that I could actually be, you know, a travel agent, have real life experience. But yeah, it was

[00:13:39] Steph: one of those things that I thought, okay, well how are we being recognized as being different? And what differentiates us other than just postcode? So for me it was like, well, there’s no

[00:13:50] Steph: real difference here. As opposed to if you’re working in a retail store, in a shopping center or something like that, versus being a home agent [00:14:00] where I would deem you as being more of a boutique agency.

[00:14:04] Steph: ’cause it’s more your experience, your skillset, what you bring to the table, how you serve, and what you love to talk about. ’cause I wouldn’t think that, you know.

[00:14:15] Steph: When you’re in a retail store, you’re expected to know everything from bus time tables to currency exchange to whether the hotel has a bath and how many inches it is off the floor, like how tight of the bedsheets, like just, you’re supposed to know everything.

[00:14:31] Steph: And it is so, such a huge job. I feel like it’s very underrated the role of a travel agent. So shout out to my homies out there like. Yeah. So ultimately I feel like we weren’t being seen, we weren’t being recognized and how we could move into this space where we were seen, heard, known, and it wasn’t a question, you were just the expert, but how do we translate that?

[00:14:59] Steph: We weren’t doing anything to translate it. So I started listening to all of these podcasts and I thought, oh wow, podcasting. That’s cool. Let’s give that a go. So six months into my travel agent journey when I was working for myself, I released my first podcast. I had 10, I got 10 episodes out of the way, and it just fell flat on its face. It had zero direction. I wasn’t talking to anyone in specific. I cringed at the sound of my own voice. I literally didn’t have any of the setup. I was recording on my phone with a sock over the top to filter out the pops. I didn’t have any of the stuff. I was literally just teaching myself from YouTube and Googling stuff online to try and piece this thing together.

[00:15:49] Steph: I didn’t know really what it looked like, but then I started getting all of that. Amazing imposter syndrome. I say amazing because it, it [00:16:00] was actually a

[00:16:00] Steph: gift.

[00:16:01] Steph: it?

[00:16:01] Steph: gave me such a gift,

[00:16:03] Steph: which, yeah, I know that you talk about imposter syndrome too, and yeah, I feel like

[00:16:08] Steph: before that I had no idea what it was.

[00:16:11] Amanda: But we have to start, that’s the thing. I mean, the fact that you sat down, you, you looked on YouTube. How do I actually record a podcast? And you had the, the forethought to create a, what is it called? It as a pop filter using a sock at the end of your phone. Now that is creative and that’s what you have to be, sometimes it’s all about just starting.

[00:16:30] Amanda: It’s like. I I love to think of this when I, I think of like content or anything that I’m trying to create, and it’s, you don’t start perfectly, you just do that messy first draft of whatever it is that you’re trying to create. You get it out there, it gets the juices flowing, and then you can come back and you can refine because.

[00:16:47] Amanda: If you go and try to do everything perfect, initially, you’re just going to get to that point where you go, you know what? I’m not perfect. Who am I to be doing this? My

[00:16:56] Amanda: imposter syndrome’s coming up. Who am I? No one’s gonna listen

[00:16:58] Steph: Ooh, yes.

[00:16:59] Amanda: it just is going to keep you stuck. You’re gonna find ways to procrastinate.

[00:17:04] Amanda: You’re gonna find ways to block yourself. And so it is just start like there’s, when we talk about mindset, there really is. A couple of different past. One is obviously the, the recoding of those subconscious beliefs and the reframing of the mindset and the growth mindset. But you also do the need to couple that with the action, the messy action.

[00:17:23] Amanda: Just, just do it start, because the more that you start, the more that you’re able to just stretch a little bit outta your comfort zone, your nervous system recalibrates, you feel okay, and then you stretch a little bit further. And that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re just going bit by bit by bit testing things.

[00:17:40] Amanda: Are they working? Not quite. Let’s

[00:17:42] Amanda: change it

[00:17:42] Amanda: up. Let’s try again.

[00:17:44] Amanda: And there you go. Yeah, exactly like that. And it works, I mean. If anyone goes back and has a look at their Instagram five years ago, I know I go back and have a look and I cringe. I absolutely cringe at what [00:18:00] I was doing, but hey, I needed to start somewhere.

[00:18:03] Amanda: And it’s a beautiful reminder of like, this is where we come from. This is how much growth we’ve had. And not just for ourselves to see, but as this beautiful like permission slip for our community as well to go, Hey, she started there, Steph started recording podcasts on her phone. And look where she’s now.

[00:18:21] Amanda: Like, you have this incredible podcast that is, yeah. Ranking internationally. It’s just to see the growth that you’ve achieved during that time is phenomenal. And I know that’s something that your community is gonna be so, so

[00:18:33] Amanda: grateful for too.

[00:18:35] Steph: Mm. Yeah. Well, I do. I do enjoy it. At the beginning it was very daunting and I thought to myself,

[00:18:44] Steph: yeah, those exact questions. Who am I? Who’s gonna listen to me? I don’t have

[00:18:49] Steph: enough experience to be doing this. And then I started comparing myself to podcasters that had been podcasting for years and years and years because I was trying so hard to be perfect that. It could have easily stopped me from going any further with it, but I was really determined because, I dunno where I heard this, but I heard a stat that the first, if you can’t get past your first 10 podcasts, it was never like a business strategy. It was more of a hobby.

[00:19:25] Amanda: Yep.

[00:19:26] Steph: And I thought, well,

[00:19:27] Steph: shit, I

[00:19:28] Steph: didn’t do all of that work. I’m teaching myself this bloody program for it to be a freaking hobby. So,

[00:19:36] Amanda: 11. Here it comes.

[00:19:37] Steph: no, That’s right. Yeah. And I had to really push myself to even release number 10,

[00:19:44] Amanda: Mm

[00:19:44] Steph: you know, that 10th episode. I was

[00:19:46] Steph: like, oh. It was like army crawling through life and just falling straight, flat with head face down on the finish line.

[00:19:53] Amanda: Yeah. But you did. And so the podcast that you have now, is that the same show as it was back [00:20:00] then

[00:20:00] Amanda: or is it changed up? This is a

[00:20:01] Steph: Yeah, completely new show now.

[00:20:04] Steph: The first 10 episodes I’d migrated over to this podcast to actually just show I wanted to be a full encompassing journey. So when I started my podcast, it was from a business owner. To my audience. And at the time that was a hundred percent travelers, people who wanted to travel. But obviously with the turn of events and things started shifting

[00:20:28] Steph: around pretty quickly. And with my pivot, I then had to change my podcast to direct it toward like B2B, like it had to go towards my colleagues then. And that

[00:20:40] Steph: was a huge shift and a really awkward one,

[00:20:43] Steph: being a travel agent, selling and speaking to. Consumers to then being a travel agent

[00:20:50] Steph: still and speaking to your colleagues instead. So that was very hard to do.

[00:20:55] Amanda: I mean, this goes so much to knowing your audience, and this is pretty much what you’re doing. Like, yeah, tick, tick, tick. These are all incredible things that you’re doing as an entrepreneur, and I think this translates across to so many different industries. It’s knowing your audience, knowing who you’re speaking to.

[00:21:11] Amanda: You talked before about being in such a saturated market and. Everyone is looking exactly the same. And when you are trying to compete in a market appearing exactly the same as everyone else, differentiating yourself on postcode or on price or anything like that, it’s not really gonna allow you to stand out.

[00:21:31] Amanda: You decided, okay, I’ll put out a podcast. That’s different. It’s not happening in the industry at the moment. And then when things started catching up, you went, you know what, I’ve gotta pivot again.

[00:21:39] Amanda: I

[00:21:39] Amanda: know who my audience is, I know

[00:21:41] Steph: Watch me go.

[00:21:42] Amanda: to and I know the direction I wanna head, so it’s B2B.

[00:21:45] Amanda: Now I’m gonna pivot. We’re gonna change things up and we’re still sitting at the forefront of the industry. You’re still that like trailblazer, that leader. Because not everyone else is doing the same. So I love that. And so now that you [00:22:00] have, you’ve got your podcast up and running your, you’ve got your online course that I believe you’ve started working on in the background, which is now for your B2B.

[00:22:08] Amanda: Clientele. Is that right? Speaking to that a little bit more for me, so now you’re starting to really emerge as a mentor to other travel agents. You’ve shifted things up, you’ve continued to pivot, you’ve refined where you’re going, and you’re now considered a mentor to other travel agents. So speak a little bit more into that for me, like what came into that decision process and is this, I suppose this is still along the path to playing bigger, but we haven’t got as big as we’re gonna get yet.

[00:22:33] Steph: Yeah, no, that’s true. So I, I guess the, at the beginning of that was what do I do with my time during. The pandemic, like travel agents are so used

[00:22:44] Steph: to being so multi-skilled. We’ve got such diverse a range of things that we can possibly do, but how do we, you know, we, I could easily go and get another job and that was where all my energy would’ve been soaked up to supporting my family.

[00:22:58] Steph: But what I decided to do was throw every last cent towards a mentor. And even though it was such a huge risk for me being a solo parent. It was one of the craziest things I’ve ever done, and I don’t even think I told anyone just how much it was actually costing me up until the end when I was almost finished because, I mean, you know, you, if you’re telling people about how much you’re investing in yourself, they might not see the, your value.

[00:23:36] Steph: Or if that’s worth it.

[00:23:38] Steph: But the things that you learn, not necessarily from your mentor, but about yourself during that process is worth every cent that I threw away at mentorship. So not saying throwing away, but just threw at

[00:23:53] Steph: the mentorship. So, you know, for that,

[00:23:57] Steph: it gave me confidence, courage, and [00:24:00] bravery to look forward and go, okay, where are the gaps? Now I’ve got laser focused eyes, so I can establish a gap from a mile away. I am like superwoman with the laser

[00:24:11] Steph: eyes, self-professed, you know,

[00:24:14] Amanda: Yes, because it’s not just a case of what you’re learning like then and there in that particular container with a mentor. These are skills that you’re actually taking forth into everything else that you’re doing. So yes, it’s great to have someone go. Can you have a look at my copy? And for this particular offer, or in this particular instance, but the skills that you’re learning, the growth that you’re having, it’s transferable.

[00:24:35] Amanda: It’s something that then sort of sets you on this completely different trajectory for the rest of your, your life, your business, as long as you implement it. That’s always the caveat. As long as you implement these things, it’s not, I heard this saying once where someone said, if you just. Attend the seminar or the lecturer, the course, whatever it is, write it all down in your notebook and then put it away.

[00:24:55] Amanda: It’s shelf help rather than self-help. And I’m like, oh, it’s

[00:24:59] Amanda: so good. It’s so corny, but it’s so good and

[00:25:01] Steph: Oh, I like it. But do you know what the number one thing was? So before I dive into how, like what actually changed and I decided that I wanted to be a mentor, do you know why? It was so different for me being in a mentorship and learning the skills is ’cause I had to actually transfer them to my industry. In my industry, we sell, but we don’t sell our own product. Nothing on the shelves of a travel agency is my own product.

[00:25:34] Amanda: That is true. Yes. You’re

[00:25:36] Amanda: selling

[00:25:36] Steph: how the hell Yeah.

[00:25:39] Steph: exactly. Who, what am I going to sell if I don’t sell someone else’s product? So I had to create something

[00:25:45] Steph: from scratch that was a hundred percent my own to be able to sell it.

[00:25:51] Amanda: Yeah.

[00:25:52] Steph: this was the hard thing.

[00:25:53] Steph: It was like walking off the cliff with a piano in my arms, like.

[00:25:58] Amanda: [00:26:00] But exciting though. And if you think about your history, like where you’ve come from and everything that you’ve done in the past,

[00:26:06] Amanda: it was leading you to this

[00:26:07] Amanda: point.

[00:26:08] Steph: Yeah. Did I die? No.

[00:26:10] Amanda: No.

[00:26:12] Amanda: you flew with a piano.

[00:26:13] Steph: Still here. So, yeah, from that, I guess it was learning how to actually create something and looking at what it is that I was good at. And you know what? It just. Was one week. One week, changed everything for me. And it was during the pandemic. Everyone was freaking out. Travel agents were dropping like flies heading off out of the industry. You know, all it was war torn country here. It wasn’t great. So that, I needed to help people and I had three emails in the one week, and it was probably. The most emails I’d received in the one week from like anyone during that time. And they were all asking me how I was doing my marketing, how I was doing my edms, what’s involved in doing a podcast,

[00:27:06] Steph: so all how I did my website, how I created my lead magnet, all of these things.

[00:27:11] Steph: And I was like, oh wow, this is so

[00:27:13] Steph: cool. And I had to really sit in that, ’cause it was quite uncomfortable there for a while, Amanda like. It was hard because I really wanted all I, who the only person I wanted to serve was my clients.

[00:27:26] Amanda: Mm-Hmm.

[00:27:27] Steph: But then all of

[00:27:28] Steph: a sudden I found myself helping out my colleagues, and then another one would come into my dms and then another one would call me and then I’m like, wow, what’s happening? What’s going on here? So I thought, okay, well now that all these people are asking me, I need to sit down and think who it is that I’m serving right now. I’m not serving my travel clients and if I mention the word travel to them, they’re gonna shoot me. ’cause it’s basically a square word. Now you can’t whisper travel

[00:27:56] Steph: like it was like, Hey,

[00:27:58] Amanda: That is, it was like travel to

[00:27:59] Amanda: [00:28:00] your backyard with a tent. I

[00:28:01] Steph: yes. Yeah. Travel to the living room

[00:28:03] Steph: for a movie.

[00:28:05] Amanda: Yeah,

[00:28:07] Amanda: it’s not the

[00:28:07] Amanda: same.

[00:28:08] Steph: I know.

[00:28:09] Steph: Definitely wasn’t up. But yeah, it was very testing time. So with that, I had to really dig deep and find. Something that I could offer them. So basically put everything on a big sheet of paper, worked out what it is that I could do, and yeah, I worked out that I was gonna create my online course, which is Travel Agent Runway. And it’s basically helping independent business owners to help step into their online authority, build their digital influence, create their own standout travel brand, but do it without the worry, the fuss. The stress, you know, the pressure headache of trying to learn new platforms in amongst serving clients, it’s a

[00:28:47] Amanda: quite often what it is, isn’t it? You, you have your zone of genius. And as online business owners, not only are you meant to be really good at what you do, but you’re also meant to be an incredible marketer. You’re meant to know how to do SEO, build websites, do copywriting. Then you need to do the financial side of things, and it’s just.

[00:29:05] Amanda: So much, so much going on. And if you’ve got someone who can streamline that process for you and make it simple, then it makes such a difference. You can

[00:29:13] Amanda: focus on the zone of genius

[00:29:15] Amanda: and a lot of. A lot of people aren’t at the stage where they can outsource things yet. And if you can, that’s incredible.

[00:29:21] Amanda: It’s certainly something that I recommend doing, but for your particular industry, it’s probably not something that really applied at that particular point in time anyway. So I love the fact that you’re able to adapt things to, to think about again, who is my client? What are their needs? And creating something that is gonna so deeply serve them that

[00:29:40] Amanda: that it’s gonna keep coming back

[00:29:41] Amanda: for more.

[00:29:42] Steph: Hmm. At the time when Travel Agent Runway had birthed into the world, people had time to work on their business. So to have a course that was going to

[00:29:51] Steph: help them, give them the recipe. To build their, you know, build their business and give them something to work on that’s [00:30:00] positive because there was a lot of negativity

[00:30:02] Steph: around and a lot of you know, shade being thrown towards travel industry.

[00:30:06] Steph: But honestly, we were just caught between a rock and a hard place. We were no better off than a client who’s, you know, thousands of dollars in debt. We were. Just as worse off. So yeah, being able to have created

[00:30:20] Steph: something during that time to give hope to a lot of people who had nothing to

[00:30:25] Steph: clinging onto. And for those business owners who were ready to just shut the doors and not turn back I helped keep the light on for those

[00:30:33] Amanda: Mm.

[00:30:34] Steph: which is really

[00:30:35] Steph: special.

[00:30:36] Amanda: Absolutely. Now I remember, I think I’ve got this right. You had some issues at the time with, was it trademarking or copywriting of the name, or someone else took your name, didn’t they, of that particular course?

[00:30:47] Amanda: Is that right?

[00:30:48] Steph: So there was a big company that had mentioned Yeah, partway of my course name in their

[00:30:56] Steph: promotions and I thought, oh my God, this is atrocious. But then again, I kind of made. The negative you know, negative into a positive. And I thought, oh, well, if they click on my website instead of theirs, that’s a good thing too.

[00:31:10] Amanda: They’ve gone

[00:31:10] Amanda: done half the marketing for you.

[00:31:12] Steph: Yeah, yeah. At least, at least those two words, the association is going out there on a big scale, so when they see mine, they’ll be like,

[00:31:19] Steph: oh, cool.

[00:31:20] Amanda: Yeah, but this is where you create the better brand. So when all of a sudden they see yours or see theirs, I should say, out in the wild, they’re like,

[00:31:27] Amanda: oh, that’s Steph. I’m gonna go and look at Steph’s thing. power of personal branding. Yes.

[00:31:34] Amanda: Brilliant.

[00:31:35] Steph: Yeah, it was a, it was a little bit dicey there for a while. I didn’t know what was gonna be of that, but then again, it was a big, massive conglomerate and I’m a solo artist,

[00:31:46] Steph: so yeah, that wouldn’t have gone very far, I don’t think.

[00:31:50] Amanda: But that’s all right. It’s

[00:31:51] Amanda: all

[00:31:51] Amanda: resolved now. Exactly. We’ve gotta pick up battles. So true. Oh, amazing. So you’ve been working in the online space for a while [00:32:00] and I believe you got to the point where you’re like, online is great. And I know so many of us did enjoy working purely online. And what I’m seeing now is this big resurgence of people wanting that connection out in the real world.

[00:32:12] Amanda: And this is certainly something that you’ve

[00:32:14] Amanda: headed to into as well, isn’t it? This

[00:32:16] Amanda: is your second year, I believe,

[00:32:18] Amanda: running a conference in-person conference.

[00:32:20] Steph: Yes, absolutely. So yeah, during travel Agent Runway days, which is still happening today, I really missed people. And I thought, okay, well it’s all well and good to create a business that’s purely in an online capacity. But for me personally, like I love people and. I am very affectionate and a little bit touchy sometimes, and people know when I haven’t left the house in a few days.

[00:32:44] Amanda: just need a hug.

[00:32:45] Steph: look like

[00:32:46] Steph: she’s really into this conversation about, you know, grapes you.

[00:32:52] Amanda: Hey, I feel you. I think it’s when you’re, when you’re hanging, got your kids there all the time, like all day long, and you’re having those kitty conversations, you just crave adults.

[00:33:02] Amanda: You like,

[00:33:03] Amanda: please talk to me.

[00:33:04] Steph: Or even when you’re standing in the chat line at the checkouts and you drop something on the floor and it’s like, oops. You know,

[00:33:10] Amanda: Yeah. Oopsie

[00:33:11] Amanda: days.

[00:33:12] Steph: around

[00:33:12] Steph: you like, oh,

[00:33:13] Steph: well I didn’t wanna forget that.

[00:33:14] Amanda: Yeah.

[00:33:15] Steph: of a sudden you try to like,

[00:33:16] Steph: you know, unravel some sort of cool conversation while you’re shopping’s progressing on the, about.

[00:33:23] Amanda: the checkout chick’s just like, go now. Go now. Next person, please.

[00:33:25] Steph: I started up with them too. It’s just a whole new like, you know, opportunity for connection. So yeah, I sound like I need to get out of the house a lot more than what I do.

[00:33:38] Amanda: I think every online business owner is exactly the same. It’s one thing to chat to people through the screen and to leave voice notes and have this kind of connection because it is really beautiful. The fact that we do get, get to connect with people all around the world, but there’s something about just being in someone’s physical energy, being able to touch them.

[00:33:58] Amanda: Just being able to [00:34:00] be in an environment where there’s just so much

[00:34:03] Amanda: happening around you. it’s It’s different

[00:34:05] Amanda: It’s different in a good way.

[00:34:06] Steph: Yeah, and I think being in a co, in a mentorship too, where my mentor, I admired so much that I never met in person. So this person was always just this unicorn in my life, you know? She was just icon and I just worshiped her. And not being able to have met her in person, even though like she lives quite close by to me, I never had that opportunity to like, bring that connection and just in my mind, she’ll always just be that unicorn that was far away. And, you know, I, I don’t wanna be that for my students.

[00:34:46] Steph: So I thought, well, I really need to bring this in. I miss people. I haven’t been to a travel event in ages. The travel events I have been to, they’re bloody boring as shit. And I’m texting friends under the table asking when lunch is on ’cause I’m starving and I’m bored.

[00:35:01] Amanda: Yeah.

[00:35:02] Steph: And

[00:35:03] Steph: Yeah.

[00:35:04] Steph: I wanna give, I wanted to give people the opportunity to meet each other because they’ve been in our container for, you know, a few years now. And also meet the opportunity to interact with them and form connections and relationships that, you know, will serve me. End them well into the future. So that was way more important to me than anything.

[00:35:25] Steph: So yeah, the last two years I’ve been prepping the Travel Trend Summit, which we had our inaugural event on the Gold Coast last year in May. I didn’t realize I. That it would take on its own persona. So it’s full on like rule breaker. We are breaking molds. We are, you know, doing things a hundred percent different.

[00:35:48] Steph: We are not selling because every single travel event in the industry, everyone’s being sold to. So Amanda, you might come to one of our travel conferences. Wherever in the [00:36:00] world, and you’ll sit there in the audience and you might not even have one speaker that’s speaking directly at the audience. They’re all speaking to each other on panels. And you know, and I just find that really impersonal. We’re in the industry just like them, but there’s no connection. The information’s good, but

[00:36:15] Steph: it would also be good if it was a podcast episode or in an email like this information is quite like,

[00:36:23] Steph: it Doesn’t have format.

[00:36:24] Steph: and. Under utilizing the power of connection from the audience.

[00:36:29] Steph: Like you’ve got a captive audience of, you know, x amount of travel agents who’ve all flown from all sorts of places around the country to be here, and you’re not taking adv, not taking advantage, but like maximizing the opportunity. So I thought, okay, well

[00:36:44] Steph: I need to be able to do that. Exactly that.

[00:36:46] Steph: Maximize the opportunity, not sell to them. So they’re not in this constant like, oh no, I don’t like that product. One of my clients had a bad experience with that product and then they’re shut down for the next hour.

[00:36:58] Amanda: Yes.

[00:36:58] Steph: don’t, I want them

[00:36:59] Amanda: seat rather than

[00:37:00] Amanda: sitting back with their arms crossed going, mm,

[00:37:02] Amanda: what’s she gonna sell me?

[00:37:03] Steph: my

[00:37:04] Steph: eyes are fluttering ’cause I

[00:37:06] Steph: can’t, I’m falling

[00:37:07] Steph: asleep.

[00:37:08] Amanda: Head nods.

[00:37:09] Steph: There’s not enough

[00:37:10] Steph: energy in the room to keep them captivated. So that’s another reason why I wanted to create an event that was a hundred percent non-selling. So I thought to myself, okay, I need to create something that’s basically. All of my entrepreneur friends get them all on stage, and then I invite all my travel industry pals and we all just get together and have an event. So that’s what I did.

[00:37:33] Amanda: Oh my gosh. Like you said, it’s just something so different, isn’t it? To have a look at what the industry’s doing going, you know what? Not liking that, like not liking that. Where are the gaps? And this comes back to your skill of being able to see the gaps and then creating something that is just going to provide so much value to your community and not necessarily sell in that particular event, but it’s gonna create that goodwill, it’s gonna create that [00:38:00] connection and people wanting to stay in your sphere

[00:38:02] Amanda: well beyond it.

[00:38:03] Steph: Mm.

[00:38:04] Amanda: I love it. I’m like,

[00:38:05] Steph: Yeah. And

[00:38:06] Steph: in, in in industry

[00:38:07] Steph: where it’s very cliquey.

[00:38:09] Amanda: Yeah, I can imagine.

[00:38:10] Steph: It’s really

[00:38:11] Steph: nice to get together and not have to sit with the people from your office or sit with the people in your brand or, you know, it’s okay to make friendships outside of those things. ’cause we are in abundance. We have so many people to serve.

[00:38:26] Steph: We are all different irrespective of, you know, passions, niches, all sorts of things. And yeah, I just don’t wanna have another. Go to another event where it’s like, oh, sorry. We’re saving this spot for so and so because they work with

[00:38:45] Steph: us. But your, your people are over there if you wanted to sit with them.

[00:38:50] Amanda: not

[00:38:50] Steph: It’s like, no, I’m sitting here because I’m, I wanna make friends

[00:38:56] Steph: outside of, yeah.

[00:38:57] Amanda: That’s what We

[00:38:57] Amanda: are here for.

[00:38:58] Steph: Yeah, but like this is a stone age. This is what I’m saying. So I just wanna like shake shit up. I don’t want any, like, it

[00:39:05] Steph: just, it’s restrictive. And our industry, Amanda, is the funnest industry in the

[00:39:09] Steph: bloody world, except behind the scenes.

[00:39:12] Steph: We’re still

[00:39:13] Steph: talking about the same old shit we’re talked about 10 years ago. So, Yeah.

[00:39:17] Amanda: And I think that the difference with that, I actually was reflecting on this just earlier in the week, funnily enough, is that there’s. Almost like the corporate world, which can be very strict, stuffy, formal. Everything has to be done by the rules. And then there’s an entrepreneurial world and they don’t really blend together all that easily.

[00:39:37] Amanda: And so what I was doing is I was sitting down updating a CV for a board position that I am I gotta be part of. And it’s been a very long time. It’s been about eight years since I updated it and I was sitting down, go. How do I actually translate what it is that I do now into corporate speak so that it doesn’t come across really strangely.

[00:39:57] Amanda: Just speaking as an entrepreneur and, [00:40:00] and a coach and a content creator, like the two worlds just don’t blend. They kind of say oil and water in a sense, and what you’re trying to do here is you’re like the, the dish soap in between you’ve gone and managed to emulsify it and bring it all together and create something that is just truly incredible.

[00:40:16] Amanda: When you were thinking about creating this event, did you realize it was gonna be as big as it is

[00:40:21] Steph: No. thought it was gonna, I thought, actually thought it was gonna be

[00:40:25] Steph: a one off thing.

[00:40:26] Amanda: Because I’m sure if you sat back and thought, I’m gonna create this inaugural event, it’s gonna be massive. We’re gonna have everyone come to it. Probably the first thing that would’ve gone to my mind is, oh, I don’t wanna do that. A little squeaky voice comes out too

[00:40:38] Amanda: hard. Too scary. Like,

[00:40:40] Steph: I.

[00:40:41] Amanda: yeah. The amount of stretch that that would require is quite significant.

[00:40:48] Amanda: Like, how did you actually. What did you do to support yourself, your own nervous system, and to be able to walk yourself through that so that you had the confidence, had the trust in yourself to go, all right, here’s the idea.

[00:40:59] Amanda: Here’s how I’m gonna make it happen.

[00:41:01] Steph: Okay. My nervous system was shot the entire time. I can gladly say, and I was working on our inaugural event last year. I had two major panic attacks. Never had a panic attack in my life, sitting at the bottom of the bath, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, just completely stoned. My 8-year-old now, he’s eight. Back then he was seven.

[00:41:28] Steph: So he’s running around really, really supporting me in those moments. Ringing my dad, talking me through. know, just being there, not necessarily saying anything ’cause I couldn’t respond. I also sometimes in the past have suffered from nocturnal panic attacks. So these are ones that are happen in your sleep and you don’t know whether you’re awake or you’re asleep. But also same feeling, just stoned to the bed. Can’t move, but freaking the hell out. ’cause you feel like you’re in a nightmare that you can’t wake up from. But it just feels

[00:41:58] Steph: so bad. [00:42:00] And honestly, I was worried. The things that I was worried about last year was not delivering

[00:42:05] Amanda: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:06] Steph: an experience that

[00:42:07] Steph: people had paid for because it was an inaugural event.

[00:42:11] Steph: I didn’t understand what it was going to look like, finished product, and if I had translated it properly throughout my marketing and my copy and my website and you know, the people I’d gotten on stage. So the people I’d. You know, had to help support me throughout this whole process. Was this the right event?

[00:42:29] Steph: Was this matching up with what they felt they were paying for? So I’d never done this before. I thought, okay, I could wing this. I’m a travel agent, I can do anything. ’cause we make magic happen every day, right? So I thought, how hard could it be? Freaking so hard. Let me tell you, you know, I’ve organized humongous big group cruises.

[00:42:47] Steph: I’ve organized group travel, I’ve organized, you know, overseas weddings. I’ve organized the whole thing like stressful, most beautiful. Days of people’s lives I’ve been a big part of, but when it came to this event, I was freaking the hell out. Finances just, I couldn’t even look at it. It was all just gibberish on the screen, completely overwhelmed.

[00:43:08] Steph: Just in all instances, I was really trying to keep my cool, tell myself, you know, this is, this is fun. This can be fun. Like you’ve enjoyed it up until this point. It’s not always going to be like this, but also just having the courage and bravery to fight through those feelings. ’cause they’re so hard and once they’re with you it’s hard to shake them. But special shout out to my therapist and also my, you know, my speakers who joined us too. They were formed really beautiful sounding boards for me when I was just wanting perspective and yeah, someone else’s eyeballs and. Give them my brain to just

[00:43:52] Steph: hold for a minute so I didn’t have to think. And it was just a really nice,

[00:43:56] Steph: so we all came together, we were like a family and a lot of these people [00:44:00] were entrepreneurs.

[00:44:00] Steph: Some they were mixed with people in the industry versus people who aren’t in the travel industry. But we all formed this beautiful team and it’s just solidified what the travel trend summit’s all about because there’s a lot of them that are returning this year. In a similar capacity of what they were talking about last year with their focus and topics.

[00:44:22] Steph: So it’s really lovely to help demonstrate what nurturing those relationships looks like, and that even though we’re an industry where it’s like you know, we basically grab you, chew you up, and spit you out. It’s. It’s nurturing those relationships in the sense where you are learning from the same people, but there is so much more that they can offer. And that same goes for a mentor. Like you might pay for a mentor for a specific period of time to help you with one thing, but just because you don’t need their help anymore doesn’t mean you can’t go back and revisit them for another thing that you need in your business. So I just feel like there needs to be some sort of

[00:45:02] Steph: constant. And I just wanted to help demonstrate

[00:45:04] Steph: that, but also get them all together so they could all meet each other. ’cause I know that there’s entrepreneurs out there that have got so much to offer the travel industry and the travel agents are lacking imagination and creativity, and they need to know. So I was just like, no, this needs to happen.

[00:45:20] Amanda: Yeah. Oh, I felt that so much. Just doing something so big and scary, even though. It worked out in the end. There’s such a process that you go through, and I think the really important thing that you drew upon there is just having the support of your team. Now, whoever that looks like, your team was your son, your dad, your therapist, all of the ent, other entrepreneurs as well in your network to help hold you.

[00:45:46] Amanda: Because quite often if we are working as a solopreneur, a solopreneur. We think we need to do it all. And to try and take on the, the weight of it all is just a massive burden. And that can lead to the burnout, it can lead [00:46:00] to our nervous system, just absolutely crushing. And when you do get to that burnout phase, I’ve been there.

[00:46:05] Amanda: It

[00:46:05] Amanda: is very hard to get back. It takes a long time to do that. So I am yeah, celebrating you and the fact that you are, were able to lean on your team, that you have come out the other side. You have got that belief that you’ve seen it work once before. And you know that you can do it, and that this year is just a matter of refining things rather than, oh, what am I doing?

[00:46:27] Amanda: Throwing myself in the deep end and just hoping for the

[00:46:29] Amanda: best. Oh

[00:46:32] Steph: this year feels so

[00:46:33] Steph: much more lighter. Last year I was doing all of

[00:46:37] Steph: the things to set up the bones of what this could look like potentially if I was to move forward

[00:46:41] Steph: with it as like a business model or if I was to create like a course around this, at least I would have something in place.

[00:46:50] Steph: But yeah, now I’ve just drilled down on all of my systems and project management software. It’s all looking great. Well, it makes sense to me, Amanda.

[00:47:01] Amanda: that’s it. As long as it works and we do something once and we do it well enough that we’ve got those systems in the background there that we can start to just automate things a little bit more,

[00:47:11] Amanda: becomes a lot easier. So it’s like putting in that hard work first time round and then it’s just refining from there.

[00:47:17] Amanda: Oh, so good. Steph, I’ve wanted to, to take a side step actually and talk a little bit about, I know you’ve touched on this. Being a solo mama and as business owners, there’s this kind, there’s this kind of idea that business and motherhood are to be kept completely separately. And I know this is something that I personally struggled with a lot in the early phases of my business that, hey, I can’t show my kids, or I can’t mention that I’ve got kids because it’s unprofessional.

[00:47:46] Amanda: But I think the. This comes back to the whole idea of breaking rules and getting to set up our businesses and our lives exactly as we want to create them, is that we get to blend the two because. One of the things that I’ve found is that kids in [00:48:00] particular, like my kids, have been some of my biggest teachers, and I love to say like kids are our biggest teachers, but the thing that we wanna do is we wanna constantly ask why like they do.

[00:48:12] Amanda: But why this? Why that? If we keep drilling down with all the why’s, we get to the, the incredible solutions that are sitting behind them, but. What have you found in your experience, like being a solo mom? How has that influenced your own journey and what has that

[00:48:25] Amanda: taught you as an entrepreneur?

[00:48:27] Steph: Yeah. Well, I think just mothers in business, like whether you’re a partnered up or you’re a solo. I think just mothers in business generally fall into a category of their own.

[00:48:37] Amanda: Mm-Hmm.

[00:48:38] Steph: We are such diverse creatures, and I can only speak from the viewpoint of that. I’ve had minimal support through my, throughout my journey, and I’ve had to rely on myself a lot when it comes to doing the hard things and. Having the guts to actually do them and having to sit on things longer, way longer than other people who have got support or people in their network or family members, helping them take their kids for the weekend or to the beach of an afternoon. Like just get them out of the house. So you can just use your brain to think without them using your brain to think also at the same time. So it is very hard, but I really feel like. Mothers in business definitely are so, we are so skilled, and I feel like we are underutilized and underrated in that regard because when we are raising children, we are so in tune with a baby who can’t speak. They give nonverbal cues. We are constantly wrapping our whole lives around this little human to try and understand what it is that they need, and we go to great extents to try and make sense [00:50:00] of it. And then it changes overnight. Their needs change overnight and they’re constantly evolving and growing. But also we are too, but we are learning those. Skills. And even though those skills are a hundred percent for motherhood, these are the skills that we are also bringing into business as well. So we are learning to read nonverbal cues.

[00:50:19] Steph: We are learning to pick up on people’s energies when things aren’t a hundred percent right. We are learning to flip things if they need to overnight to make things work in a more cohesive way like we are so. It and I’ve got goosebumps all over my body and I think I might cry, but yeah, I just really think that instead of it being looked at, oh, you should be ashamed that you’re a mom, I.

[00:50:47] Steph: You are working your business and you’ve got kids too. Like there’s that, you know, stigma of working without children, you know, working without children, but then being a mom without a job, you know, to be present in both equally. That I feel like even though some entrepreneurs and some people who work for other companies and things might not have the flexibility to do this, but. If you have the flexibility to create a business and you are an entrepreneur and you wanna set your own rules, make sure that you’re setting those expectations that your family is. Just as important as your clients and that your level of love is equal between who you share that with in your family, your friends and your clients, and it’s all the same. And then you don’t walk home or you know, walk to the living room with my case with a bout of guilt that you haven’t served everyone the same. So

[00:51:45] Steph: then you can go to sleep

[00:51:46] Steph: at night and go, you know what? I was a good mentor today and I was also a good mother. I was also a good friend. I was also a good daughter because you are

[00:51:54] Steph: sharing that with everyone, but also knowing your limits of how many people are your capacity [00:52:00] and

[00:52:01] Steph: more is not necessarily best.

[00:52:04] Amanda: Not at all. No,

[00:52:06] Steph: There you

[00:52:07] Steph: go. There’s your gold.

[00:52:08] Amanda: I love it.

[00:52:09] Steph: That’s my.

[00:52:10] Amanda: I completely agree with you and, yeah. Being a mom and an entrepreneur, this is something that, again, I struggled with so much early on, is that I just had this guilt that would constantly follow me around that I wanted to. Do as much as someone who didn’t have kids.

[00:52:27] Amanda: And so instead, I felt like I was failing my clients in that respect or failing my business because I couldn’t grow it as quickly or as big or anything else that other people without kids who could dedicate themselves full-time to was able to achieve. And that I felt like I was failing my kids because I wasn’t able to be present for them.

[00:52:46] Amanda: And so this took a lot of just. Internal jostling as it does, and thinking that it needed to be this 50 50 split and it had to be like perfectly balanced. And this the idea of work-life balance, it’s like, it’s not a balance. It’s sometimes a weird

[00:53:01] Amanda: blend that we create,

[00:53:03] Steph: It’s a.

[00:53:04] Amanda: It is, it is. But I think once you become okay with that and give yourself permission that, you know what, I’m just gonna do things that work for me, and you actually then establish those boundaries and can be communicated with people and let them know.

[00:53:17] Amanda: What’s expected, these setting my expectations, then they’re gonna respect that it’s gonna be okay. You don’t need to do as much as someone else who can do this full time. And I say this to my clients ’cause it’s quite often a theme that comes up a lot is that maybe it’s not kids, maybe it’s around their health or there’s something else that is coming up for them that is causing them to go slower in their own eyes compared to other people.

[00:53:39] Amanda: It’s not your

[00:53:40] Amanda: on your own timeline and it’s about becoming okay with your own timeline. Stop comparing every to everyone else that’s around you. It’s just this is your path. Put your blinders on, focus on you and everything will be

[00:53:55] Amanda: okay. It’s gonna work out for you.

[00:53:56] Steph: Mm. Yeah, my little, I’ve got a favorite

[00:53:59] Steph: little [00:54:00] saying sometimes that I say to myself, and it is from a little book that I put picked up in Hawaii about 10 years ago, and it’s, the life of a turtle, and one of the favorite sayings was,

[00:54:10] Steph: the slower you go, the more you see.

[00:54:12] Amanda: yes, it’s so true. I think about when I go traveling. If you jump in a car,

[00:54:18] Amanda: you, you’re flying along, you don’t see anything. But one of my favorite things to do is actually go on a bike and just ride around the city and explore because you cover more distance than you would if you’re walking, but you’re going

[00:54:28] Amanda: slow enough that you can take it all in.

[00:54:30] Steph: Mm.

[00:54:30] Amanda: what a wise turtle that is.

[00:54:32] Steph: Oh yes. Thanks for the tips.

[00:54:35] Amanda: That’s it. Come back again next week. More turtle tips.

[00:54:38] Steph: yes.

[00:54:40] Amanda: Oh, St. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for chatting with me. I’d love to know where do you like to hang out? Where’s the, where’s the best place that people can find you? I know you’ve got your podcast. You are on Instagram. Is that the best place for people to come

[00:54:54] Amanda: across you, your work and follow along?

[00:54:56] Steph: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve got my podcast unplug in Paradise. It’s available everywhere. I’m also on Instagram at Stephanie Myers Academy. I’m on Facebook too. I’m on email. All of the things websites, I. It’s all there.

[00:55:13] Amanda: Yes. And what is it that you’re working on at the moment? You’ve got your upcoming

[00:55:16] Amanda: summit, so

[00:55:18] Steph: Yeah, so the Travel Trend

[00:55:19] Steph: summit’s happening again in May of 2024. So it depends on when you are listening to this. It could be before or after, but yeah, that’s what I’m working on presently. I’m also looking at hosting some group cruises at some point. It’s a dream that I wanna be able to do again. And

[00:55:38] Steph: I dunno what that looks like in amongst everything else that I’ve got going on, but I’d love to have like an ultimate girls trip away. I reckon that would be so, so fun. Just,

[00:55:48] Amanda: I

[00:55:49] Steph: us moms, we don’t

[00:55:49] Steph: get to have enough

[00:55:50] Steph: fun. We, we do the job, we do everything else, and then we don’t actually go have an opportunity to not be mom and just go and have some fun. That’s what I want.[00:56:00]

[00:56:00] Steph: That’s the next priority.

[00:56:01] Amanda: I love it. All these

[00:56:03] Amanda: big ideas

[00:56:04] Steph: I know

[00:56:05] Amanda: just getting

[00:56:05] Steph: some of them are good, some of them are

[00:56:07] Steph: bad.

[00:56:08] Amanda: Amazing. Oh, it has been so good chatting with you. I’d love to know, is there one last party word of wisdom that you’d love to leave at the listeners of this

[00:56:16] Amanda: podcast?

[00:56:17] Amanda: I.

[00:56:18] Steph: Yes. So

[00:56:19] Steph: my wisdom would be that even if things feel hard, doesn’t mean that they’re impossible. Even though what you feel you can’t do doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. So if you feel like you can’t do something, doesn’t mean that you can never achieve it. Like I told myself for years, I’m just a travel agent and when I had nothing to sell on the shelves, I had to really dig deep and figure out what it was that I could sell. And it just worked out that I had to look within for the solution. And I did and I found it and I’m. I’m taking it everywhere with me now. So yeah, it’s just trusting yourself

[00:57:03] Steph: and just keeping true to what it is that you wanna do, and stop comparing and validating yourself, you know, comparing

[00:57:12] Steph: against other people. There’s so many, there’s like five of them in there.

[00:57:15] Amanda: That’s, it’s all good. Look at me then.

[00:57:17] Amanda: I love it. So,

[00:57:19] Steph: Write.

[00:57:21] Amanda: Why not just

[00:57:23] Amanda: add something else on there.

[00:57:25] Steph: I’ll talk to you again in 10 years. Amanda, I’ll let you know how my bio is doing.

[00:57:29] Amanda: That’s right. Oh, s

[00:57:31] Amanda: thank you

[00:57:32] Amanda: so much for coming on the show.

[00:57:34] Steph: Thanks, Amanda. It’s been a pleasure.

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