Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 118 - The Butterfly Effect
Transcript
- Rachel K: It's day 118 of the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel K. And for those of you who don't know me, I am a travel agency owner and I also have a website, Elevate with RachelK.com. We have courses, coaching, mentoring, consulting, variety of programs that you can opt into or not, it's fine. But if you need it, We're there for you and most of them are pretty low cost investments. for those of you who are joining again, thank you for coming back. Keep on keeping on. Don't forget to subscribe so you can get the daily notifications of every episode uploading for this year. And you can always come back down the road, 365 episodes, bite sized episodes to help you keep going in your business. Just pretend I'm like your cheerleader. All right. So I'm not really sure what I'm going to title this episode yet. Every action has a butterfly effect. Don't be a shitty person. That's what I've got written down for like the title of this episode. I'm to have to work on that. Title in progress. So one, and this is like all the good and all the bad, I did kind of go on a spiel about please don't be a shitty person, don't get mad at people, don't seek vengeance, don't be like... No, okay, please don't. I've learned in my own little like spiritual journey, I have come back to the Catholic church and I learned even gossiping can be considered murder of a person. If you're intending to harm their reputation, you're murdering that person. And I was shocked and I was like, well, best get to confession about this because I'm a not. not doing that. You know what I mean? Like I have done that. Okay. But also every good thing you do has a major effect. So one phone call has the opportunity to connect you with dozens of like-minded and supportive people. One post on social media asking a question has that opportunity. As long as you do it in good faith with integrity and you don't intend to harm anyone, it can also have that effect. And I'm going to talk about, let me make sure I don't talk about this in other episodes, because I wrote down all the good. So I'm going to talk about my experience. If you haven't been tuning in, I used to do a lot of destination weddings. That was like my primary focus in my business, because I'm very passionate. I've been in the wedding industry, like not vicariously, I've worked in many different aspects of weddings in general. with the exception of DJing. I'm a terrible photographer. I feel like I could be a good DJ though, because I'd be like, let's get on the dance floor everybody. No, I would not be good at DJing. Okay. But I'm not a good photographer. I've never officiated a wedding. I'm not an ordained minister. Pretty much everything else with regards to a wedding, I have worked for a company in that aspect or like, I play piano so I have played piano at weddings. Piano. Anyway, in recent years I have decided to completely change my niche with zero knowledge on how to really go about this new niche idea and it's not like a very popular or common niche. I do expect that not exactly the type of travel I'm going into. ⁓ but very similar travel is going to trend and explode. ⁓ Anyway, I had no idea how to approach this and I called, it's been a year in progress and I called a few companies that were kind of aligned with what I'm wanting to do and some of them wouldn't call me back because they're like, no, you're competition. Others wouldn't call me back because they were like, no, you're just a greedy, terrible human being for some reason. And I was like, well, I'm not going to give up on this niche and I'm not a greedy, terrible human being. So that person just doesn't, does not understand. And part of what I'm doing, excuse if you hear the furnace randomly coming on, I'm going to edit the audio, but just in case, if you do still hear it. ⁓ So I started studying or just like researching any travel agency who might be in my niche again or like similar in the similar vein of what I'm looking to do for my niche. And I found one company, I had no idea their mission was not anywhere near aligned with mine. but they had the same ⁓ values. So I was like, okay, hi, I'm not in competition with you. And I left a voicemail. Hi, I'm not in competition with you. I wanna structure my travel agency similar to how you have your business set up. And I have some questions before I approach my business attorney with possibly restructuring my LLC. I don't really know what to do here. And I'd like to have a discussion. That person. texted me, asked for my email, sent me an email. We set up a call and they were like, you know, as far as this aspect of it, I don't really deal with that, but I know someone who will. And then they put me in an email chain with this other random person I've never met. She and I set up a call and went very, very well. Again, we don't have similar value or similar like morals, but we do have similar values. And so there's a little bit of a conflict if we were to partner with each other, but we were like, we can make this work, right? Well, then she referred me to, she's actually, thought she was a travel agency owner. She is a DMC. And then she referred me to another agent that she works with who does kind of what I'm wanting to do as well, but not fully how I do it or how I want to do it. And that agency wants to partner with me as well to ⁓ further the main cause that I'm doing. And you're like, what in the heck are you talking about, ma'am? I'm just saying one phone call from Google and leaving a voicemail and just saying, hey, I need some help has led to all of this opportunity. All the good, the butterfly effect. And I don't even know what's going to happen after this, but it's just continuing down this amazing path. Okay. And like I said, these people don't necessarily, they're not like I mentioned earlier, I went back to Catholicism. These people aren't Catholic in any capacity. They straight up said, I do not align with that religion at all. And I said, I understand you can do whatever you want. And they're like, this is kind of how we do things. And we figured out a way to work with each other. So in a few episodes back, I talked about like, make sure the morals and values are aligned. And I mentioned maybe I started talking about like if your religions are completely different, probably not a good idea. However, it can work like it did in this example, but like pro gun versus anti gun, like those kinds of things, it can still work. You just need to figure out their why behind it and see if their morals are aligned with yours. It's just a different opinion. Okay. All right. One bit of gossip or shaming someone if they have a different opinion from you can spiral into creating. for yourself a reputation of emotional immaturity and unreliability and like not being able to trust like being afraid to even speak up around you. That's not esta no bueno. You know what I mean? And again, This is probably not tied to your faith or spirituality, but when I learned that gossiping is consider a violation of the third commandment and like some other commandments, thou shall not kill. If you're doing it with the intent to damage that person's reputation, you're murdering that person spirit. Like you're murdering their reputation. Why are you doing that? Like what business is that of yours to be doing? Living in fear or just like in a maybe not a very mature emotional state can lead to your own physical health issues. And this is like the butterfly effect again. This is like the nastier side of it. It can lead to your own physical health issues. And I'm not saying like all physical illnesses are caused by fear or your thoughts. I'm saying a lot can be possibly tied to it. And I'm gonna ramble for just a second because I have a little bit of a beef with a hormone doctor I see content on about perimenopause. And there were all these studies released because there is that stigma. If you are a woman like over 35 and you go to the doctor and they're like, it's just stress, it's just stress. And they were like, it's not stress, it's your hormones. And I wanted to be like, ma'am, in my AMP 101 class, They taught us that stress can affect your hormones. yes. And combine that with the changes of perimenopause. Like, stress can be a huge factor. ⁓ And if your hormones are a little out of whack, that can start to lead to health issues. So there are certain thoughts that you have that can put you down the path of like not being of good health. I'm not saying like I was born with some genetic conditions. That's not my thoughts, that's just how I was created, right? And there are many people that have like genetic conditions that are out of their control. There are many people that have diseases that just happen and it's not necessarily tied to your thoughts. But there are many that are also possibly connected to living in a state of fear, living in the... a state where you aren't willing to even like take accountability or address anything that you might be doing. And again, I think that's tied to fear. That's just my opinion. Okay. Anyway, it erodes trust when you're living in fear or emotional immaturity, it erodes trust because you're afraid to actually be honest with people. You know, like when you live in that deep state of fear, you're afraid they're going to fire you, your clients, right? So it starts to erode trust. ⁓ Conversely, if you are constantly attacking people and shaming people all over the place, you're bullying them and you're belittling others. For what personal gain is that for you? Like an ego boost? Like, I don't understand that. But it does damage their relationship and it can lead to potential violence. Violence isn't just physical. Okay, violence is any kind of like vitriol or hatred towards someone for any reason. It's not healthy. Okay. Eventually, good or bad, this can affect the actions you take in any aspect of your life and whether or not you can control your emotions will affect everyone around you and conversely your business and your life overall. So you can't just go around being super hateful on social media. and be super loving to your family. Eventually that's gonna spill over into being super hateful towards your family and your close friends. It's very dangerous. Also, if you are struggling with like family relationships and you start being more loving in another area of your life, that can also influence you to make better decisions in how you communicate and treat your family. ⁓ ha ha. Please understand either way, even if you're nice and people are like shitting all over you, continue to stick to your morals and values. You cannot control the free will of those who disagree with you. You cannot control other people. And even like, I remember years and years ago, there was an advisor that I had developed like a friendship with. And I realized how afraid they were because they were spending all their time blocking people that had different opinions of them and their comments and banning them from their communities because these people are like, can you explain this? This doesn't make sense to me. This is what I think. And they would just spend so much time doing this. And it's like, why don't you have a reasonable discussion with them? That's an opportunity for more content and to really like showcase your value, you know But instead there were just like oh these people are terrible and blah da da da da and that advisor I'm 99 % sure is no longer an advisor they Really really struggled so but they were spending so much time fighting and fighting and fighting instead of just sticking to who they were Okay, here's a phrase I like to say from the Big Lebowski. That's just like your opinion, man. If anyone disagrees with you, that's just like your opinion, I've been saying that for probably two, three years now. It really keeps me out of getting upset with people when they're like, you're wrong and stupid. That's just your opinion, I don't care. This is my opinion. Do you have any evidence to back up your opinion? No? Okay, bye. Okay. If you aren't understanding how everything you do all day long affects everything in your life, it's gonna make your life a lot more difficult. And you're gonna find, also you get into, if you're in like the, I'm here for good, I'm here for like building people up and that, and you just stick with that and you're like, these are my values, I don't wanna stray from them. And you don't get super offended from people. like online or on phone calls or whatever, that's gonna help make your life so much easier because you are disciplined in who you are. I did an episode, Discipline is Freedom. I did a sub stack, Discipline is Freedom. If you're very disciplined in who you are, none of that is gonna bother you and you will not waver when faced with people maybe arguing with you. Like the example I gave of the travel advisor who was spending so much time just ban, ban, ban, ban, ban instead of having a real discussion with these people who were disagreeing with them. People they'd never met from online communities. ⁓ that's going to make your work a lot more difficult. Having a negative mindset, like everyone's out to get me. I got to fight, fight, fight. I got to do all this stuff and I'm right and you're wrong and there's no in between. There's no gray area. You disagree with me. I'm done with you. That's going to make life in general difficult because it's like, are you even willing to learn from other people's opinions? Now that that's just like your opinion man. That's just a good way. Like if there is no chance of discourse or discussion. Having that mindset of, let's just see opinion, there's not a fact, neither one of us have the facts, then you're fine. All right, this is a weird episode, it's fine. Just don't be a shitty person. It will affect all areas of your life. Every positive thing has the butterfly effect to lead to more positive things. Every negative thing has the negative effect to lead to more negative things, okay? even if it's just like negative thoughts in your head. So please be careful of how you are managing your emotions, especially in the social media sphere or like anytime it's going to be in writing. ⁓ Because again, you display that you're showing I don't even listen to anyone else. I'm the one that's always right. I have to control everyone and everything around me. And that kind of scares people into just being like, ⁓ you're bully, can't even, I can't trust what you're saying because you're clearly only in it for you. Alright, that's this episode. Tomorrow we're gonna talk about leveraging your partnerships. Leveraging partnerships. So this episode was also kind of a deal because if you're trying to build partnerships, be very wary of your actions is what I'm saying. And tomorrow we'll talk about leveraging them. Have a great day, thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to subscribe so you can get your daily notifications. ⁓ Every episode is released at 6 a.m. Central Standard Time. So if you're like West Coast, maybe not subscribe unless you don't have notifications turned on on your phone. Alright, bye.