Burnout + Comebacks: Alysa Liu and Rewiring Your Confidence
In this solo episode of the No BS Travel Advisor podcast, host Marcie Muensterman shares a raw, unfiltered account of her 19‑year journey through burnout, rebuilding, and reclaiming confidence as a travel‑advisor CEO. She recounts recent events—including a live “Do the Damn Air” masterclass that coincided with airline‑industry upheavals, a Puerto Vallarta cartel incident, and an Arctic snowstorm—illustrating how external crises amplify internal stress. Marcie critiques systemic issues in the travel‑agency model (host‑agency contracts, commission splits, non‑compete clauses, and the culture of unpaid labor) and calls out a hostile Facebook page that attacks her credibility. Using figure‑skater Alyssa Liu’s burnout‑and‑comeback story as a metaphor, she explains how to rewire limiting beliefs through neuroscience‑backed affirmation practices, a 30‑day challenge, and deliberate mindset work. Throughout, she emphasizes personal responsibility, autonomy, and the importance of setting one’s own terms rather than yielding to industry gatekeepers. The episode ends with a call to action for listeners to identify limiting beliefs, rewrite them as present‑tense affirmations, and track progress, while offering ongoing mentorship and community support.
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Hey there. Welcome to The No BS Travel Advisor. This is the solo edition. Just me, Marcie Muensterman, my mouth, my mistakes, and the real stories from 19 years in this wild-ass industry. There will be no guests here. No censorship, no filters, just the truth behind how I burned out, rebuilt, and finally learned to run this business like the the CEO that I am. And if you're an independent advisor who suspects your host might suck, hates working for free, and appreciates a well-placed F-bomb, you're in the right damn place. So let's go. Hey friends, welcome back to the No BS Travel Advisor Podcast. I'm Marcie Muensterman. All right, so breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. It's Monday here in my recording land, but We've already had a hell of a week because the podcast comes out on Fridays. And if you're listening on the episode drop day, I know things are probably feeling very heavy the week of February 23rd. I have so much on my mind as usual. There is so much going on in the world of travel and in the everyday world of living in the United States. And this weekend, on top of everything else, I Had my first part, part 1 of the Do the Damn Air class live. I was not going to teach it live in 2026, but after reevaluating the modules and everything that's been going on in our US government, I knew there were major changes since last year and decided to make that update and then teach it live again. Well, something I have not shared with you guys is that Jude is in travel softball. You might know that, but I thought her games and her tournaments were every other weekend, so I scheduled it for February 22nd. Well, it turns out she had back-to-back tournament weekends right in the middle of February, and so I missed 4 softball games yesterday because I was teaching you. And it was such a bummer. Like, I really didn't realize until after the whole day was over just how much I missed because they have a struggling softball team. And yesterday they pulled off 2 big wins. I would've loved to have witnessed that. So it's okay. We live and learn through our own personal decisions and mistakes that we make in our business, and we move forward, right? I don't know how much you know about Do the Damn Air, but I wrote this course last year and it started off as like this quickie 2-hour masterclass to just kind of give you a high-level overview of what it means to service airfare, not necessarily book airfare. But to service it, even if your client books it themselves, because there are all these misconceptions in our industry that you cannot assist someone if you don't actually book the air. And that is just not true. There are so many outside-the-box ideas, ways to communicate with the airlines, even if they book with points, even if they go direct to the airline, whatever. And it just really was an inspiring moment a year ago talking to another advisor about this. I was like, you guys need to know that there are all kinds of things you can do to really step into your power as an advisor, especially when airfare is sucking for your client. It ended up being a 10 to 12 hour class with multiple modules because I never stop writing things. I always include when things come up or FAQs pop. And so over the year 2025, this course continued to revamp and grow. Into what it is now, which is a 13-module, 3-part live that you get the lifetime recording and 86 resources, 86 that literally cover almost anything you can think of. And if you do happen to think of something that there is not a resource for, we dig in and create it for you and add it to the Kajabi portal. I am so proud of Do the Damn Air. It is not my favorite course because it is intense and there's so much information. I prefer Propose to Close. If I had to pick a favorite child, it's always going to be Propose to Close. But how proud I am of myself and my team for writing this course, getting it out to you. It has been just the most amazing year and labor of love, and it continues to get better. And I will teach it live again later in the year. But for now, if you're interested, you can head to my website and check it out. It will be available on the website from now on anytime. At the end of the day, being with you yesterday, almost 100 130 of you really was the best way to spend my Sunday despite missing Jude's games. Because while we were on that 5-hour call yesterday, our travel world was imploding outside. I mean, I'm always a nervous wreck before I teach live, but we woke up to some crazy shit and my adrenaline was rushing well before 6 AM. And I knew the day was gonna be long, but I did not realize how long it was gonna be. And there were so many Crazy things happening, good and bad, and it just felt like gosh, this was the right day to have do the damn air. The industry was literally throwing curveball after curveball at us on Sunday, February 22nd. The irony literally of discussing airfare while the world of airlines was blowing up—it's literally the reason I know we always will need this live. We went to bed Saturday night only to wake up to the announcement that the current administration. was holding TSA PreCheck and Global Entry hostage because the Department of Homeland Security couldn't get more money out of Congress last week. By 11:30 AM the very same day, they rolled that back because again, they're using the travel industry as a pawn in government decisions because Congress isn't doing what the current administration wants them to do. And if you think travel isn't political, I'm gonna be real honest with you guys. You either have your head buried in the proverbial sand. Or you are watching the wrong news sources. Everything we do in life, every decision we make has an influence of politics. And in travel itself, it is extremely political. And if you're taking to the damn air and you were live on Sunday, you know that because every rule that was written during the Biden era has been overturned by our current administration in just the last 6 months. And that is exactly what we talked about on Sunday and how to manage all that and what it means for our clients. Clients and for all consumer protections moving forward in the airline industry specifically. But get this, get this— while I was teaching Do the Damn Air from 12 to 5 PM Eastern, the Puerto Vallarta cartel situation was unfolding in live time, and advisors in the chat were sharing links and discussing this while I was teaching. And we handled it. We discussed it during the Q&A sections. Then wait for it— the weather report came in. Clients started texting their agents while we were on the call and were panicked over all the delays and cancellations because the Northeast was having yet another Arctic tundra snowstorm. 3,500 flights were canceled in advance of this Arctic blast that was ripping through the Northeast last night. So here we are Monday morning, and I was up at 5:00 AM reading the news Catching up on the overnight information and then sharing it with the Maximize Your Travel Advisor Business Group, because that's how we do shit around here. We talk business, we talk reality, we talk facts. We have to learn how to do these things, guys, because that is what our clients expect when they hire us. And what I learned over the last couple of months about travel advisors who are or are not servicing air is that 1 in 4 of you. Are absolutely hands fucking off, and that just blows my mind. Literally, it blows my mind the things that you have chosen to do in your business because of some of the advice you have been given since you started this job, and how just fucking horrible that advice has been for your businesses, and you probably don't even know. And I think that's part of the reason why I like teaching live, so we can actively talk about some of that stuff right there during Q&A, and really address those myths. In the industry, even being told directly from your host. And here's one of the things I want to say. If it feels weird, if you're thinking that doesn't sound right, do more research. Do more research. If something doesn't sound right, even something I say and I need correction, you find something else out, let me know. Let us know. I want to constantly be learning with you. I'm always open-minded to having a conversation. In fact, I got an email over the weekend talking about how many emails I actually send. She was like, oh my gosh, I just discovered you. I listened to your podcast. Hi. And I went to your website and I, you know, she's kind of just dove all into the No BS world. Okay. And she kind of sent me this email basically saying, for somebody who says we shouldn't be so desperate, you send a lot of emails. The overview, it was a nicely written email, kind of giving me a heads up that this was a little bit overwhelming for her. And I just wrote her back and said, look, I get it. I totally feel this. I do multiple emails a day, 3 times a year during my sales. And the main reason is because travel advisors never read anything. They don't take personal responsibility. And then 2 or 3 days after the sale is over, they start opening emails that they got last month, and then they want me to honor the sale. Every single time I've ever had a sale, this happens, especially in my July sale, because it is the same age percent off that I am. So this year in July, it'll be 46% off. And I shit you not, every August 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, I get emails saying, hey, Marcie, I really want this sale, but like it ended 5 days ago. Can I get it? And it's really frustrating. And so I just honestly wrote her back and said that. And I also said, you know, I always try to provide a little bit of value in each of these emails because I want to give you something if you're even considering, you know, getting the course. But hey, I get it. If you don't want these emails, please unsubscribe, or I can remove you, or you could delete the emails, whatever your option is. I understand that sometimes things are fucking annoying and you're just feeling like an onslaught of information. But I look at it like this. If you're focused on a mentor, if you're focused on getting information from somebody, Choose your lane and go that direction. It does not have to be my direction. This is how I run my business, and I'm really proud of what I have built. And I just want to make sure you have all the information you need. It is not about desperation. I am— I honestly don't care if you ever purchase something from me. I am here to serve my community the highest levels in the most ethical ways. And if you need help, you know, And if you don't know, you're hearing it now that you can come ask me. You can send me an email. We can have a conversation if you disagree with me on something. I am much more approachable than I sound. I'm a much softer person than I sometimes come across. And I think that that's really kind of also what's on my mind. There's just all this misconception around the goals that I have for my coaching business. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later, but what I have learned in this, just the last month talking to you guys and in the business as a whole in the last 19 years is that so many of you look at your businesses and you often cannot separate like what's actually factually happening in the world from the personal when your clients or your prospects make decisions. And so we're really gonna talk about that belief today, that belief that everything is personal somehow, that somehow the weather might be your fault. That you need to apologize that the cartel blew up Puerto Vallarta over the weekend, that the government shut down TSA PreCheck and your client had to go through a regular security line. You might look at those things, those issues, those conversations, those, those text messages that you get from those clients and prospects and think, I'm failing them. You somehow believe that a client pushback or questioning you at all means you're not good enough or you're incompetent. But let me be clear. These are your thoughts. These are your beliefs, and it's doing a lot of damage. I sent an email last week to all of you, one of those annoying emails that came in one of my sales campaigns, asking why you aren't obsessed and living more boldly online in your social media content. And I want to read you some of the answers. And I'm going to be honest, they made me really sad. And I always do this and then wonder, why did I put myself in this position to read these sad emails? But I want to hear from you. I read every single email. I, I can't always respond to every single email, but I do read every single email. Here's one that really caught me off guard. I'm afraid of the judgment from posting more often. I'm afraid of the time commitment. I feel like I'm talking myself into posting more and Life has been so hard. Everyone knows that I'm a travel agent. Everyone knows they want a vacation, but I don't think they want it from me. Oh, here's another. I guess I would say because I still feel like a total imposter, like I shouldn't be doing this and that I'm so new to the industry that I often second or triple guess myself and talk myself out of being bold and stepping out there to get those aligned clients that I actually want to work with. My biggest fear Failure, Marcie. I'm afraid I'm going to show up big, make a fool of myself, and then fail. Another one, I get in my own head feeling like since I don't have firsthand experience with every destination— how would that even be possible?— then my clients aren't going to see me as knowledgeable. This one says, I'm afraid to put myself out there because I'm afraid I won't be able to plan a trip they will love. I lack confidence. I'm scared that I'll fail in public and that people will judge me. And I would say the people will judge me was like the most prevalent response. I think I got over 100 responses to this email and the majority of them, when I opened, would say, I don't want people to judge me. And I sat back and I've been thinking about this so much since they started rolling in a few days ago. Y'all, the way you allow Your fears of what others think control you, hold you back. It's crazy to me. It's so insane. But I also understand it. I totally sympathize. I have been there with you. You are not alone. But we cannot allow the people from the cheap seats of your life to create barriers that don't exist. They do not exist. These are made up barriers in your mind. These are made up challenges that you believe. This is an ongoing trend. And I hope just writing the email to me, sending it, allowing me to read it, that you too can look at it and be like, oh my gosh, this is so silly. This is so ridiculous that I believe this. And I thought about Alyssa Liu. Don't know how to pronounce her name correctly. I should have looked it up before I got on here. Alyssa is the figure skater from the United States who's 20 years old, who just won gold medal for the women after her long program a few days ago. And oh my goodness, I have loved learning how all of the choices she made for herself and at such a young age that led to the greatness of standing on the gold medal podium and actually jumping with joy because she chose to do it her way. And stopped worrying about what everybody thought. It just really inspired me to bring that story to you today. And you're probably thinking like, what does the skater have to do with travel? It's not about that. It's not specifically about travel. It's about resilience and becoming the phoenix of your own story. From rising from those ashes and being the hero of your own journey. Not that just Alyssa won gold. Though she did, and she did it in a way that didn't just end this drought for the U.S. women's figure skating, she obliterated expectations. She skated to a score of 226.79 and took home gold, the first for an American woman since 2002. But here's the part that really, really matters, you guys. She left the sport. She left this sport. One day she got off of a 3rd bronze medal podium at the Worlds and walked away at age 16. She was our next great Olympian, and at the peak of her trajectory, she decided, I don't wanna do this. She was not injured. She was not being forced. She did not lack talent, but she was burned the fuck out, deeply exhausted, and so fucking done. She had spent her entire life on ice, sacrificing everything— her social life, normal experiences, teenage opportunities, going to prom, real fucking freedom— while everyone around her told her what to wear, what music to skate to, what to say to the public, what not to say, how to do her hair, how to fucking live. She told us in the last couple of weeks that she wanted to be her own person. She wanted to go to school. She wanted to live her life. She wanted to trek to Everest base camp with her friends. She wanted to eat meals and not think about how many calories were in the food. She took 2 full years off. She retired. 2 years of not worrying about placements, scores, fucking judges' opinions, fucking coaches' opinions and parents' opinions, choreography notes. 2 years of living her life outside of expectation and performance. And during that time she was, oh my gosh, totally normal for a moment. It's wild. It's wild. The expectations that we put on a child to perform. It's happening right now. And during all of this, to take something so precious and realize life outside of it was equally as precious, this amazingness of being a world-class figure skater, which so many people would want, right? Or we think we would want that. But waking up one day at age 16 saying, I know I'm missing out on my life, and that is important. But after that 2 years, she got curious, not because somebody told her she should be curious, not because sponsors wanted her back or because her coaches called. In fact, they didn't call. But something clicked inside of her. She loved figure skating. And after a ski trip that she went on, she thought, let me just see how it feels to get back on the ice. And when she tried her double axel, it felt great. Not pressured, just good. Not like obligation, just joyful. And that's when she called her coaches. She didn't beg them. No, please take me back. I want this so bad kind of energy. She said, I want to come back and I want to do this on my terms. Music, style, expression, creative control. And if I don't want to skate, I'm not fucking skating. If I want to ramp up, I'll ramp up. I will decide how much time I'm spending on the ice. I will do this different. I will call the shots for both my skating career and my life. This is not something any Olympian had ever done. And I think her coach was like totally fucking freaked out. If you watch the 60 Minutes special, so good, so inspiring, go watch it. You could tell he was like, I had to go open a bottle of wine and then we got on the call and it was kind of condescending at first, but then I was like, I totally love this coach. And I think he probably almost said no. That's the energy I was feeling. But then something changed. I think he saw her passion, her spirit, her excitement. Her realness. And he agreed, and she committed. But let's be clear, she didn't just commit to figure skating. She committed to herself. She fucking threw down, man. Started winning world medals. She skated in her own style. She began celebrating life on and off the ice. And when she finished her gold medal skate at the Olympics with her blonde and black striped hair in that gold gorgeous skating dress, Right there, she came off the ice and she said loud, proud, and fucking real. That is what I'm fucking talking about. Right into the NBC camera on live television, like as the baddie she fucking is. And I was like, oh my God, she is me. I feel this in my soul for her. Like I can feel her energy. She is not arrogant. She wanted to share her story. She wanted to share her art. She told the press, I don't care if I fall. I'm here to share my art. And sometimes you fall. When you come off the ice and you feel that energy and you say, this is what I'm fucking talking about, she is saying it out of a statement of passion. She lived through burnout, walked away redeemed, now in joy and doing this her way, reclaiming her own definition of success. That just also happened to be gold medal. But she said she didn't care if she made it to the podium. She cared that she was there in this moment. And that's why it's so inspiring. That's why it's like she moved mountains by herself at age 20. I think she's 20. Oh, you might just be sitting there right now like, literally, this is what we're talking about today? Some figure skater? But if you have not checked her out, oh my gosh, you guys have got to go onto Instagram and watch all of her videos and watch all of her press. She is incredible. And she She also wants to share her story around mental health, and I think so many of us can relate. She has ADHD, and one of her favorite things is the challenge and how instead of letting ADHD be this crippling situation for her, she's like, no, I love the challenge and what is hard to do that other people can't do. I know I can do it because of my ADHD. Every day on the ice is a little bit different. Her truth is she quit. But she came back. She rewired her own brain and reclaimed her power. And she ended up on top, you guys, doing figure skating differently. Not killing yourself on the ice every fucking day for 16 hours. Sound familiar? This is also my dirty little burnout story. Right now, there is a Facebook page out there created just to make fun of me, just to create content that is anti my content. Try to take my story and spin it into something negative to undermine my value in the industry because I am a burnout, because I burnt down my business, because I walked away for three years. The travel agency owner—I know it's an owner, by the way—who created this page is completely anonymous. There is a fake Canva logo. There is a website, but it's fake too. Like everything is just fake, fake, fake. And recently, I called out the anonymity of this page, and she basically tries to explain it that her success would overrule the narrative. That she's really trying to educate people not to listen to me. And even though in so many of the posts we're sharing similar content and have similar beliefs, she does not like that mine is rage-baiting, basically. But she's not willing to show her face. She's not willing to tell her story. She wants everyone to focus on something else— me and how sharing my story is wrong, that my antecedent Conversations don't have any weight, that even your stories, your experiences that you tell me aren't real or aren't enough evidence to say that the travel industry kind of sucks sometimes. She doesn't like it that I'm asking you guys to look closer at your contracts and hold shitty owners accountable for their anti-1099 policies. She's like, oh, she's using anger and rage to induce a problem that doesn't exist. It does fucking exist. She just doesn't want to be questioned. And they say I'm unethical, but I'm sharing facts, you guys. Most of the time, I don't just make up statistics. I truly value research and education, and I spend hours and hours of my life doing this with you. If I don't know the answer, I try to help find it. I try to find a source. I will help you focus on what it needs to be focused on so that you can make the best decision for you. If I'm helping you, In your business, she thinks I'm really angry, probably thinks I'm a little desperate. I'm none of those things, and I'm definitely not bitter anymore because I've taken personal responsibility for rebuilding my own business and life. I no longer place blame where it doesn't need to be placed, and I think that that is probably what is so frustrating is that honesty always carries weight, and when it doesn't align with your belief in what our industry looks like, it can be frustrating to. Feel like someone might be attacking you. I am not attacking anybody. I am educating on the situations that I have encountered in the last 19 years. And so many travel advisors are being affected by toxic situations, bad contracts, really shitty commissions, and they feel like failures. They feel like it's completely their fault somehow that All of this stuff that's just always been the same way is somehow unchangeable and that they're stuck. And I just want to make it clear, you're not stuck. Now, fault is different because you made those decisions, but it also means now that you have more information, you can change your mind. And that's what I want for you, not to change your mind if you don't need to. In fact, I truly believe happy advisors don't contact me. Most advisors who are struggling only contact me when they are at their wit's end. When the burnout is so apparent and they are so over whatever their story is, they're just exhausted by it. And the reason I tell my story is because I don't want you to feel alone. And I know I felt very alone. I mean, every single person except maybe one that I knew when I left the industry in 2015, they don't speak to me now. They don't talk to me. And a lot of that is my fault. But some of it is just, they never checked on me. And so I want you to know you're not alone and you don't have to burn it all down. She insinuates on this page that I want you to burn it all down. And in fact, that's not true. I want you to start anew, but not in 2 years. I don't want you to take years out of the business. I want you to take a pause, maybe put an out of office on so that you can focus on what you need to do next. And I want you to take personal responsibility for the decisions you've made to this point. I don't actually want you to blame your travel agency owner. The decisions she makes in her business literally don't have anything to do with you. It's just that if we as an entire industry don't start looking in the mirror, we can't learn from our mistakes. I want you to take breaks sometimes or pause your business so you can get clarity. So then you have the confidence to move forward with new decisions because every time you decide to make a change, you need more information to do it. And that's what I'm here doing. And recently I stopped saying, even about my own story, I didn't know what I didn't know. And I've changed it to, I didn't know what I didn't want to know. And that is how I feel about all of you as well. Partially, I didn't know what I didn't know is true. But it also is true you did not want to know because your excitement was so high and you were so ready to take on a new challenge that you did not read the contract, that you did not research more travel agency hosts, that you did not really understand that you needed a lawyer, that this business was expensive, that you were actually a business and not just a hobbyist the minute you sold your first vacation. And you didn't want to know that yet. You weren't ready to know that. And that's how I feel about my own story now. I didn't want to know because I was obsessed with this agency. I loved their branding. I wanted to be a part of it. And I wanted to be a part of it more than I cared about learning about the industry as a whole. And it's just an aha moment I literally had in the last couple of weeks. And it's one of those things that I want you to think about today. What have you avoided? Wanting to know or wanting to learn that is holding you back from going forward in your business the way you desire? What are you choosing not to learn, not to look closer at? Seriously, I think about this all the time now. I go to bed thinking about like, what are we not doing because we just don't want to, or we're afraid to look at it? Maybe we're afraid to read the contract. Like, what's it going to say? What does that mean for us? Right? We have to change that narrative, you guys. This industry has been suffering for decades from all of this crap. That there's no perfect sales businesses out there, but like our stories matter. I really want you to know that how you're treated matters. How you work and show up matters. And if we keep doing it the way it's always been done and never talk about the shitty side of the industry, The side that takes from its agents and doesn't follow IRS law and refuses to look at the business model closer and maybe make a quiet change to it just to make it a little bit easier to work together? Come on. Some owners want to blame the person teaching the agents how to ask more questions. They'd like me to shut the fuck up instead of just getting clarity on what they're doing that they could change to make Easier to work with the agents who want to work with them. I want you guys to slow down. I want you to read the contract. I want you to sign your contract after a lawyer reviews it. I want you to refuse to accept exclusivity and non-compete agreements because that protects you so you can keep doing this if this agency doesn't work out. I want you to ask for more money. And be allowed to charge fees. I want you to have autonomy because that's what it means to be an independent contractor. But these owners, some of these owners are so pissed because they do not want to be questioned. They want things to remain the same. They don't think the system is broken. That is what is different about us. They believe that they're right and I'm wrong and that's it. And so we've got to throw Marcie under the bus on this fucking stupid ass Facebook page. Like, come on. That is literally how some of them are spending their time right now. It blows my mind. Because they could be looking closer at how they run the business and how to partner with you, the travel advisor, and treat people with respect and be kind. And they think I'm a bully, so they're just bullying me back. They don't actually ever acknowledge that everything I write is sourced. Sometimes I'm literally copying and pasting right off the IRS or ASTA websites. I use Host Agency Reviews, Travel Weekly, I read a lot of lawyer blogs. I have 2 lawyers that I actually speak to and consult with often before I create content, but they like to say I'm unethical. I think that they just don't like how much I share or overshare about the industry. They want to blame someone else for the whatever is going wrong in their own business. So for that, I'm the issue. I'm the problem somehow. And this could slow me down. This could really upset me. I could let it control me, what they think of me, what they say about me, what they say about my Story that they call me names and say I'm bitter. I could let all of that control how I behave and run this business the very next day. I could shy away from the conversations. I could shift my content in a different direction, but I'm not going to because I don't allow outside voices, people in the cheap seats, to decide how I behave every single day as your coach and mentor and as a travel advisor. Hell, they even insinuate. That I do not sell travel. My tour operators would disagree. My BDMs would disagree. But the thing is, you guys, I don't have to prove it to them. They're not my audience. They're not my aligned client. And even my aligned clients, I don't have to, I don't have to prove anything to you. I take personal responsibility for all of my story, all the mistakes I have made, all the good things. I was telling Jude over the weekend on a phone call during a break During Do the Damn Air that she needs to be a goldfish. After today, you get to forget everything that happened today—the good and the bad—and that is also something I practice. My mistakes—they were yesterday. I have to learn from them and move forward. I can't get myself stuck in the narration that I'm a failure somehow because I fucked up along the way. I have absolutely built a business. For travel advisors on the back of the bullshit in this industry, but I did not create or manufacture it. I am solving problems that absolutely exist, and I am confident that as I continue, I will make more mistakes. Absolutely, nobody has a perfect business. Nobody has a perfect decision-making history. But this is not about whether or not they're right or I'm right. There are always going to be people judging you. There's always going to be challenges. And it can be rebuilt again and again and again. It can be torn down and a new foundation laid at any point. Any business we choose to run the way we want to run it, it's on us to do that. And that is what I do every day. I put my two feet on the floor and I know exactly why I get out of bed every day. And I was really excited because we have to keep talking about the things that make us uncomfortable in the industry. And we have to challenge the old outdated ideals and move into this new chapter together. But if I believe it's not possible, that's probably true, right? So I want us to keep talking about it. I want us to look at where we are right now and where we want to go. And I wanna talk to the burned out, struggling travel advisors wondering what's next. I want to talk to you about whether you're being treated like employees instead of being offered autonomy as a 1099. I want to make sure that you are being paid fairly with appropriate splits, that you're allowed to charge fees because I want you to feel empowered to have the business that you want any way you want within the confines of ethics and morals and the law. I don't want you to feel like a personal failure when a flight is canceled. Because of the cartel or weather or a government shutdown. I want you to realize when something is your issue and when you are just caught up in an issue that wasn't caused by you. I want you to wake up in the morning and be so excited to fucking do this job, even when it's hard, even when there's a challenge, even when something is going wrong. The belief you have inside of you. about not being good enough or that you are absolutely stuck and cannot change, it is the biggest lie that you believe. It is 1,000% not a fact. It's just a thought that you have rehearsed until it felt true. Your brain doesn't distinguish between experience and repetition. Say something over and over and over, especially when it's negative, your brain goes, Oh, that's the truth. I'm bad at airfare. I can't charge fees. Clients won't pay me. I'm not experienced enough. I don't deserve more commission. I'm never going to be able to quit my day job. My host isn't toxic. This is just the way the industry is. The more you say these things to yourself, the more they become reality and a part of your identity. Can you imagine For one second, imagine me not being here talking to you and believing all those lies that are actually in writing on the internet about me. If I believed all that, I would not be able to show up every day. And that's why I don't believe it and I don't let it control me. I believe in what I'm doing and the way I'm doing it, and I trust myself. I absolutely trust myself. I didn't always trust myself, and this confidence didn't come out of nowhere. It took years of therapy and really doing a ton of self-reflection and realizing just how negative those thoughts were that took over my life during my burnout. And did you know that the more negative thoughts you have in your mind, the more will pop up? And the more you tell yourself lies that you think are true, the more true they actually become, even if they're not. You are the only one that can flip the narrative in your mind though. What if instead of letting those negative beliefs and complaints grow stronger, you Intentionally replace them. You have to make that decision right now to swap out those thoughts. I can actually retrain my brain, usually in less than a month, sometimes in less than a week, because now I'm really good at changing it. It's not magic. You don't do like fake affirmations that you don't actually believe. It has to be deliberate, thoughtful, and intentional. You have to start with the negative belief that you truly have. The one that haunts you, that you dream about, that keeps you up at night, that thinks you're not good enough, that your imposter syndrome is absolutely real. Your fear of being a failure, of being embarrassed, like all this stuff. I know you don't want to live boldly or obsessively. You fucking told me. You do not trust yourself. You have to turn that into a positive, a current new belief, and reframe it. Then you have to write it down. You have to put it places, on a sticky note, on your computer. Maybe you write it in dry erase marker on your window or your mirror. You have to repeat what was using past tense and what now is in the present tense. I promise you, this is not woo-woo witchy bullshit. This is neuroscience. Your brain actually builds neural pathways based on repetition. The more you think a thought, the stronger the pathway becomes. It's like you're literally driving over it multiple times. It's like when you are in a, if you have a gravel driveway, it's like when it's brand new, it's all this beautiful rock and whatever. But then as you drive your car over it every single day down the same exact lanes, it gets closer and closer to the dirt. But it is the foundation, that pathway between your brain and your belief. Negative thoughts spread the same way. So if they're repeated daily, they become true. They become that identity. They become the pathway. Positive thoughts repeated daily can become the pathway. You can reverse how your brain is thinking. You can retrain that brain. And I think you can do it quickly, but you have to be so real with yourself. You cannot lie to yourself. So here's how it works. You literally say the limiting belief out loud right now. I actually want you to pause the episode, stop what you're doing, and say the lie out loud. That really makes you uncomfortable, the one that you think about when you're laying your head down at night, I want you to say it. I don't think clients will pay my fees. I don't think I'm good at airfare. I think that they're going to judge me. I'm scared to ask for a raise in my split. I don't feel like I belong in luxury. I've never traveled anywhere any good. I'm too new for anybody to trust me with their vacation. Whatever it is, guys. Maybe it's not even something business related. Maybe it's parenting related or relationship related. Say it. Acknowledge the lie. You then have to replace it. I'm a strategic advisor. Clients value my expertise and will pay me. I'm capable of mastering anything in travel, especially airfare. I deserve aligned partnerships and more commission. I belong in the rooms that I choose to walk into. I am enough. I am a legacy builder. One of the affirmations I have been saying to myself since I started my coaching is I have leaving a legacy energy. And I did not really believe it when I first started saying it. I had told my coach, okay, I want to leave a legacy. I want to be seen as a matriarch, a leader of my industry, somebody who teaches and has learned lessons and shared them with others, who doesn't gatekeep, who, if If I ever am gone, people will remember what I did. I have leaving a legacy energy. That is a belief that I have been living in, and that is the reason that none of these negative things that are being said about me even fucking matter, because I am living exactly in my truth, and I know a legacy is being built, and that is what I will continue to do because I know it's making a difference. Because for every negative thing, there are 10 positive, amazing things happening. And I repeat this to myself often, especially when I'm struggling, because I do struggle and you will too. But you can repeat whatever your affirmation is morning, noon, and night. You can repeat it when you're having your coffee, when you're having drinks, when you are with your friends, you can share it. You can do it in car line. You can do it right before you go to bed. If you struggle with consultations, say it before the consultation. Me, I'm teaching live now. I always say it right before I get onto a live event, like do the damn air. I am leaving a legacy. I'm gonna bring that energy into everything I do. And not all of you have to like it. In fact, I don't actually think it makes sense that all of you would like it. It would be weird if everybody agreed with me. So I have learned not to let those negative things in, even when they're being written about me, even when they're being shared or tagging me in, like, the comments in a Facebook group, which happened also over the weekend. I know I have my own back, and I know a lot of you have my back too. And I want you to know I have your back. And your brain, your brain right now is collecting evidence, even as you listen to this, about what's true. And as you collect evidence in your life and business, it will become more apparent that all those lies you told yourself were just the biggest loads of bullshit ever. Every time someone pays your fee, every time you handle a cancellation calmly, Every time you figure out the error with your client, especially when they're having an issue at the airport. Every time you advocate for yourself and ask your owner for something that you want or need in your business. Every time you speak differently and more confidently about your business. Every single time you do one of these things, every time you close a commission with a comma or because you've put yourself out there, or just every time you post something and don't cringe. Your brain is collecting the receipts. I don't think Alyssa woke up one day magically feeling new confidence. I mean, she was a teenager when she made a lot of these decisions. And I can tell you and promise you, I did not wake up one day out of nowhere and decide to rebuild based on nothing. I had to know I could do it. I had to trust I could do it. I had to remember that I was a damn good advisor. I had to remember that everything that happened in the past was just that. It was the past. I get to learn from it. I could absolutely come back to travel and do it my way. I had to believe that. For years, I avoided even having the conversation about travel because I was missing it so desperately, and I didn't want to admit that to myself. I genuinely never thought I would do this again. I was living in a fear-based reality. I would say anyone who's ever felt a total failure lives there at some point. I was absolutely afraid people would judge me for leaving and then having the audacity to return, especially past clients, but even BDMs. I was nervous about being too seen in the industry. And just like Alyssa, I had to make a decision that if I came back, I was going to do this differently. I was not going to work 16-hour days. I was not going to hustle all the time for every little booking. I was not going to take every client. I was not going to work past 2:00 PM because I had to be in car line by then. And that meant doing this my way. I knew as soon as I was ready, I was going to charge fees. I knew I was not going to do more than 3 to 5 weddings a year. I made all these new rules, even without evidence, even without having anybody in my corner to mentor me. I knew I could do this differently because I knew I wanted what I wanted differently. more than I wanted to be away from the travel industry. I wanted to be deep into the travel industry on my terms. Just like Alyssa missed figure skating, but she knew she couldn't do it the way it had always been done. That burnout is real. It exists in so many of us, especially overachieving women. We were in all the honors classes. We talk too much. We overthink everything. We people-please to death, but we are passionate and we love what we're doing, and I know you can have exactly what you want the way you want it here as well. Alyssa rebuilt her figure skating career. She fell back in love with skating. She knew who she was and decided to live in her most authentic self instead of worrying about what everybody thought about her hair. She colored it in stripes. And even my sister was like, oh my God, her hair is such a mess. And I'm like, you know what, who gives a shit? She's a fucking fantastic skater and she's a kid. Let her have her hair. It's changeable. She rebuilt her belief system. And when she stepped off that ice with— that's what I'm fucking talking about. She was not celebrating the gold medal skate. She was celebrating her comeback on her terms, sharing her art the way she wanted to share it. And that is what makes her story so Powerful. The choice to return on her terms, on the world stage, and be willing to fall down in front of millions of people watching— that fear did not make her decisions for her. She knew she was good enough to be there, and it wouldn't even matter if she fell. It wasn't about winning the gold medal. It was about doing her life— her, in this case, her business is figure skating— exactly how she wants it, on her terms. And some of you absolutely need to return to your business on your terms, not your host's terms, not the industry as a whole terms, not a Facebook group, you know, telling you what to do. You should not even worry about what I think. Some of you ask me like, I need your opinion on my logo. I want to look at this. Can you look at this website? No, it's not that I don't want to. It's just that it doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter how you're choosing to do it. I support you, even if it's different than me. But if you come and ask my opinion, I will absolutely share it. You don't need to ask my opinion. You need to make decisions that make sense for you. So what are the rules you're going to make? What are your terms going into the next chapter of your business? Here's a 30-day challenge for you. For the next month, I want you doing 3 things. First, I want you to write down the top 3 limiting beliefs about your business and yourself. Get honest, get personal, y'all. Look in the mirror, stop lying. And get fucking real with yourself. These are the things that are gonna be keeping you up at night wondering if this is the right place for you. The ones that seep into your mind right before you decide or not decide to post today. Okay? The ones that you think about aimlessly while you're showering, doing laundry, driving your kids to school, that infiltrate, the negative things that infiltrate your mind. Second, I want you to rewrite them using positive present tense. Okay. And then I want you to build affirmations that you speak into existence twice daily. It can sound like, I'm a strategic business owner who people respect and are excited to work with on their most fabulous vacations. Clients who value expertise happily pay me. I handle challenges, airfare chaos, and being questioned about my fees and business model calmly and confidently. No matter who is asking me, my voice and my perspective matter in this industry. I deserve to be paid a fair commission split and charge fees. If you don't resonate with any of the things I just said, plug in your own limiting beliefs into ChatGPT and ask it to reframe it into positive present tense affirmations that you can say that make sense for you. 30 days. I want you to track it. I want you to commit to it. I want you to check back in with yourself and how you're feeling. And if you want, you can check in with me. Maybe you have an accountability partner now because you made a friend from my post a few weeks ago about, you know, finding some friends in the industry to support. And then I want you to ask yourself, what has changed in my business? Have you started charging a fee? Did you handle a storm without melting down? Did you speak with your travel agency owner about increasing your commission? Did you stop saying you're sorry for every little fucking thing that's not your fault? This industry is going to continue to test you and challenge you. There's always going to be somebody out there with a negative opinion of you. There's always just going to be things that could hold you back if you let them, but you get to decide who you are inside of this industry, inside your own life, and make decisions that are right for you. Right for you. You can be the burned-out version who believes all the bullshit and the noise and the lies and the myths about the industry, who lets yourself get bogged down in the negativity. Or you can be this amazing recalibrated version who comes back starting today on your own terms, your way, because we absolutely have to stop allowing the opinions of others control how we show up. Some of you have asked me, how, Marcie? This is how. This is a first step. Intentional decision. And frankly, I just want to have the life and the business I desire more than I want to give breath and fucks to people who don't live in my house, pay my bills, or stand alongside me. And even people who stand alongside me, their opinions don't always matter. I could give a fuck about some things that even my kids think or my husband thinks or my mom thinks. I do what I want. And as long as I'm I'm not hurting, physically hurting somebody, I am not unethical. I am not immoral. I know my own truth. I believe it. I live it. I know how much I help. I know how much I give. And I am not going to stand back and let some random person who refuses to show their face on the internet control the decisions I make. I want what happens to me to be determined by me, not some random asshole out there bullying me on the internet. Bring your worst, bitches. I don't care. You can be the person who blames others for their issues, or the person who takes back their voice, their power, their story, tells their story and their beliefs to build the business and life you want for you. And maybe one day, after a crazy chaotic weekend like one we just had, after advocating for yourself to make more money, after charging what you deserve, after standing your fucking ground. You'll close your laptop, exhale, and say, "That's what I'm fucking talking about." Bye, guys. All right, y'all. That is the end of another episode of the No BS Travel Advisor Podcast. Thank you so much for being here. And remember, I am not a lawyer. That is my disclaimer. I am a coach and mentor in the travel business with a ton of big opinions. So don't forget to leave that five-star review. And if you need anything, I'm here for you. Bye.
