From Isolation to Connection: Building Community as a Travel Advisor

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 CEO that I am. And if you're an independent advisor who suspects your host might suck, hate Working for free and appreciates a well-placed F-bomb, you're in the right damn place. So let's go. Hey everyone, welcome back to the No BS Travel Advisor Podcast. I'm Marcie Muensterman, and today we are going to dive into building community. I want to talk to you guys about this because over the last 3 years, That has been what I have been doing, and it has been with you. I am celebrating 3 years as a travel advisor coach and the owner of Maximize Your Travel Advisor Business Facebook group. This is an exclusive group for like-minded travel advisors who want real, real talk, no bullshit advice around the business, and I am I am the only person who approves posts in that group. I do have some helpful moderators and Sam helps me with membership, but I am the one who approves all the posts, makes all the rules, bans all the people, accepts all of the members that are coming in every single day. It is my group. It is my community. And I have built it with extremely high standards. And if I don't like you, or I find out you do not like me, I ban you. I remove you. I have no interest in building community with people who don't want to be open-minded and to understand multiple perspectives. That is what our group is about. But it's also about not sharing so much outdated advice. You can get outdated advice in any other fucking travel group. But not mine. I do have a very specific coaching style that I have built my community on. I believe truly that one of the core values of my training business is that I put people over profit and I put integrity and personal stories that actually are relatable at the forefront of my brand. And I teach that to you. I share so much of myself with you through this community aspect, through the content I create on my Instagram, through my podcast. This is my community. I single-handedly brought us here and celebrating 3 years is unfucking believable to me. When I tell you that this started as just a Facebook groups course, something I had done at a previous job. That I knew would work here. I wanted it to be designed for travel advisors. I needed a website. I needed to get the name out. And I was very nervous. Like, who did I think I was? That imposter syndrome was coming in like so hard at the time that I was writing the First Class Community Facebook Groups course. And I was working with my coach and online business manager, Miranda Leach. And she said, you know, Every time we talk about this course, like you just go on and on and on about all the things in travel, all the things that you were not taught, all the things that you know how to do. You should consider coaching. And I was like, I don't think so. I don't really want to coach, but I was already in multiple Facebook groups for travel advisors giving advice. And my advice often stood out because I was saying something that not everybody else was saying. I was encouraging anti-hustle culture. I was saying, say no to that. You don't need to do that. Consider niching. I was saying, charge a fee. It went on and on and on and on. So when I heard this from Miranda, I thought, no, I can't do that. But I was already doing it. And that is how we got here today, was one little seed plant of you can do this. You can share your knowledge. In a space that you create, that is your space. Marcie, go do it. You know, she just said you should just go do this. You will attract a specific aligned travel advisor who wants the advice you're giving, who doesn't wanna do this the same way they've always taught it. So I did. And can you imagine if I had said and believed in my own imposter syndrome that I Can't do this or shouldn't be doing this because of the fear of teaching it differently. Can you imagine where we would all be? Would some of you even be here? Based on the messages I get from you, many of you would have quit by now. Because when you joined my community, you have learned a new way, a fresh perspective, especially for the ADHD busy mom of 2, right? Like, You guys relate the most to me because I have ADHD as well. I'm a busy mom with a husband and domestic responsibilities and volunteering and PTA and car line and softball tryouts and criminal justice academy and teaching my kid how to drive. There's so much going on. And I needed to share what I've learned because I want you to also have the things I have, which financial freedom and freedom to choose what I do every single fucking day. And I don't do it by myself. I do have a coach. I have a mentor. I have an assistant. I just hired my first W-2 employee to help. But this episode is not just about me. It is about you and building your own communities. A lot of you will come to me and say, I don't want to be with a big host because I'm afraid I won't make connections. I want someone small, so I feel like I'm part of a family. And what I'm here to tell you today is to do it fucking differently. Just like everything else I tell you is create it for yourself. I want you to think to yourself what it is you want out of this business, who you want to be connected to, how you want to surround yourself with advice, knowledge, and expertise. Because what some of you are worried about Isn't just money. It is making friends. It is having people to travel with. It is building connection. It's not always about aligned suppliers and aligned hosts and aligned agency owner, aligned clients. No, it is about how fucking lonely the travel industry is. When the travel business shifted after 9/11 into an independent contractor model, And lots of brick-and-mortar travel agencies closed up, we all came home to work. And we didn't know what kinds of consequences that, that could have had on our industry. While it's awesome to be able to have the flexibility to work from home, it can also be extraordinarily isolating and lonely. You often don't know who to talk to unless you have an owner, a mentor, somebody else to call. You don't automatically become friends with the people who also work within the same industry, but you need and crave support as normal human beings. And I want to be very clear before we go further. This is not an anti-host episode. This is not a burn it all down episode. This is very much a pro-growth, pro-you. How do you actually build a business that doesn't feel lonely if you've Ever felt like you're just out there alone, like a satellite in the sky? This one is for you. Think back to the day you made the decision to become a travel advisor. What kinds of things did you pour yourself into? It was all about setting up the business, building out a website, creating social media. You joined all the Facebook groups, but you weren't thinking at that time, like, I'm gonna be by myself in my house trying to figure this out. Most of us do not work side by side with quote unquote coworkers. We are in Our homes, in our offices, in our basements, at our kitchen table, in front of the television, on the couch, in the bed, working, trying to figure all this shit out. We don't have a break room. We don't have someone leaning over us at the water cooler gossiping. We don't have anybody to just run something by them. And a lot of advisors don't want to admit that they're struggling because they think they're supposed to figure this out on their own. So instead of asking questions, many of you are just sitting silently. In these spaces, at your house, in your car, on your phone, and you're not asking, how do I make these connections and travel? And you're spiraling and you're sad and you're overthinking to death and you're second-guessing yourself and you're wondering, how do I get out of this imposter syndrome? How did I even fucking get here? And you assume like everyone else That somehow everyone else is doing better than you are. And I'll tell you what, most of you are not struggling because you are a bad travel advisor. You're struggling because you don't know where to go get the answers you need. And you think that until you figure it out by yourself, that that's part of the job and it's not. And there are a lot of great agency owners out there creating community for you. But for those of you who are taking a less risky approach and you are with a larger host so that you can have the higher commissions, it can feel really difficult to find your people. If you have made your way into Maximize, your travel advisor community, you already have access to some incredible travel advisors that are freely giving of themselves in the business arena. But I need to make sure you understand that even if you have a great travel agency owner, that is not your only community option. And that's not a diss. It's just sometimes You can get yourself in an echo chamber, right? Even hanging out with me. I want you to get really uncomfortable when you think about your current relationships within the industry. What do they look like? Do you have someone, anyone who you can call on a dime, help you with a problem, give you some advice, anything like that? Like a travel advisor bestie. If you do not have a travel advisor bestie, I want to encourage you today to start to for one. Create an avatar of a travel advisor bestie that would be perfect for you, aligned with who you are as a travel advisor, but also slightly different that can give you perspective and challenge your thinking in this industry. The reality is hosts and travel agencies are built for structure and to provide you with business opportunities, learning your CRM, going on webinars with going to webinars with their preferred partners. They will be available to you if you have a commissions question, compliance, supplier relationships, those just the back end of the business, right? They are not built and do not try to meet your emotional needs. Even within, you know, their conferences and award ceremonies, that is not the high focus. They're not there just for sounding board, even if they have an active Facebook group. They're not built to help you process confidence, deal with panic attacks, realize the fears that you're living in, the scarcity mindset. They're not helping you build boundaries or identify yourself in the world of travel. And when it, and when advisors expect their travel agency owner or their host to be everything, support, validation, growth, connection, they usually end up disappointed. Learning outside of your travel agency owner or host does not make you disloyal. Loyal. It makes you reasonable and serious. Networking within the travel industry is one of the smartest decisions you can make as you grow your business. And don't forget, you are an IC, an independent contractor who gets to design their business. You are allowed and actually expected to seek education, perspective, and connection beyond one container. If your growth depends on one room, One voice, one structure, that fragility, y'all, that is not going to be stable for the long term. You're going to get stuck in your ways or believe you're stuck and never able to break out. Real growth doesn't come from just training and information and courses. It truly does come from relationships. And there are so many different kinds of relationships that you can build in your travel business. First of all, there are peer relationships, those colleague-to-colleague experiences, people in the same season of life as you who are also building this business. They have similar questions, similar fears, similar, is this normal? Is this normal? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you sure this is normal moments? These are the people who can help you with understanding where you are in the now. Then there are going to be those stretch colleagues. They've been around forever. They have so much experience compared to you. They might be a few steps ahead, but they might understand where you're coming from. And they're not your mentors specifically, but they're always happy to share where they have come from and where they have ended up. They can kind of be that flashlight ahead for you. Then you have your connector relationships, the people who introduce you, share resources, say your name in rooms that you haven't graced yet. Almost none of these relationships are going to start formally. They start in the comment sections of Facebook groups that you're both in. They might start in a DM where you've noticed them and want to connect and you have a question. They might start through a networking event that you went to for your BDM in town. They might be randomly at the same, you know, Chamber of Commerce Experience in your, in your hometown. Community is often built sideways, not top to bottom, right? So you have to really think about where you're gonna meet people in the travel industry and put yourself in those rooms so that you can start recognizing when you want to see someone beyond just a quick comment. Or maybe you wanna go to lunch or coffee with a travel advisor who's been in the industry for 10 years longer than you, but It's intimidating. It's intimidating to put yourself out there because some advisors don't want those connections. They don't want to help you. They are competitive. They don't care that you're in their backyard. All they're going to do is focus on themselves. They don't have time for that bullshit. But there are so many others who are open to building and creating space for everyone who they encounter, who want to share their knowledge, who don't care about gatekeeping. For every annoyed competitive advisor who doesn't want their brain picked, there is another advisor, especially in the community I have built, that wants to make friends, that wants to share and be accountable to someone else that could be in the same stage of this business of them. I want you to think about how you can start to make this happen for yourself because The more you are able to collaborate, hold accountable, and be willing to have conversation with fellow travel advisors, the more you are going to learn, the more perspective you are going to gain, the more education you guys can share. And you do not have to be an expert to gather people together, create a mastermind or some kind of accountability space. You just need to be willing and open-minded. There is no hierarchy. Everyone will bring something to the table. It's just a group of people potentially that you can all share relatable conversations and stories. The more we talk to each other, the more we can fully understand what everyone else is going through. It's not built for comparison. It is truly built on collaboration, being honest, being vulnerable. That is what you can build yourself. You don't need 50 people, 2 to 3 people that you can rely on in this industry to give it to you straight in private conversations, to give you advice that you can also be honest with. Those are rooms that you have to build, and you can absolutely go out there right now and ask, who wants to do this with me? Who needs accountability? Who is in a similar season? Leadership. In this industry is you. You are a leader of yourself, and you have the capacity to lead others. It just means being super brave and putting yourself out there. One of the things I can relate to on this is moving a thousand miles from my hometown, my home state, my family, and all of my connections, network, and friends in 2016. We moved here late December of 15, early January of 16, and. I had never lived outside the state of Indiana, but I knew I wanted to be close to the beach. There were greater opportunities for my husband to work in Tampa, and I wanted to move before the kids got into serious levels of education. So we moved. We made the decision very fast. He got a job very quickly that paid a lot more money, and we were excited. But of course it was fucking hard. I knew exactly one person when I moved to Wesley Chapel, Florida, but I am the type of person who wants to be social. Not all the time. I love working from home. I like being by myself, but I wanted to meet people who wanted to have a glass of wine on the porch. You know, people who I had things in common with so I could rely on them potentially to help me if I needed it, because no family meant no real support to just call somebody if an emergency popped up. So you have to build it when you move. You have to build it. Anyone who's moved, even 5 miles, they say even if you move 5 miles, it takes almost 3 years to settle in because you have to usually find a new grocery store, find a new dentist, find a new doctor. Imagine 1,000 miles. If you are in a relationship with somebody in the military, you're moving all the time, but it typically comes in with some sort of built-in community. When you move on your own without a built-in anything, You have to create it. And that can be so challenging, especially if you're an introvert, especially if you're not super happy to be around a lot of people. But if you want your life to be better, more fulfilling, we can't do it alone. So within about a month of being here, I got with my girlfriend, Kat, the one person I knew in town and said, hey, do you want to start a book club with me? I already had a business and I had met a few of the girls that were in that business, but I really wanted to build something with my neighbors. And I was living in a cookie cutter neighborhood and there were tons and tons and tons of women living in it. And I just thought there's gotta be 10 women who wanna read the same book every single month. And she's like, sure, I know some people who would love that. I really relied on her to bring people into the book club, but I did the organization. I made sure we had someplace to go every month. I made sure that we had a book to read and that it was easily accessible to us, whether through the library or on Amazon or whatever. And we create a little Facebook group, a little Facebook chat, and we got it going. You guys, although it fell apart during COVID revamped in 2022, and I brought that sucker back. And although it's not nearly all the same women, it is another collective group of women. And we're about 9 solid readers per month, and it is so much fun. And this is like the group I look forward to connecting with, and they have become my mini village when I need help. It started in 2016, but it has developed and changed and grown and, and altered because some of our members have moved back to the Midwest or their kids are graduated and they're no longer, you know, in need of all this socialization. So things change over the years, but this group of women has sustained. And it was so simple to start. Me and one other person and a couple of network You know, pieces that she introduced me to, and then I took it and ran with it. There are so many ways to do that very thing inside of the travel community so that you can build your travel village. You want this to sustain you, but you cannot expect to do it completely alone. And yes, you could join a small boutique agency and think all of that is built in. But in many cases, those relationships are fully formed. If you wanna find someone to travel with that you connect with, you've got to create those relationships. You've got to put yourself out there and find those aligned travel advisors that want the same thing as you. Stop questioning yourself. Start being yourself more, being more vulnerable, putting yourself out there as a funny human being that so many of you are. There's no way you can become confident all by yourself. Many of us do need some level of validation, someone to pat us on the back, celebrate with us, and tell us we're doing a damn good job. And it shouldn't always just be your agency owner. It needs to be somebody that doesn't have any skin in your game. Someone who will reflect with you and be honest with you, tell you That you're not crazy, or that you are. Someone who can talk you off of a ledge, or tell you you can fucking do this. You have got this. Isolation makes us feel small, inept, and incapable. It can really fuck with your brain if you spend too much time alone. Community can expand you. It can bring so much to your everyday if you have somebody to send random reels to. It becomes relatable. I really, really think that the more people you are willing to get to know in this industry, the more opportunity you have to grow. One of the reasons I always felt very stuck when I was with my first agency was because there was no encouragement to go beyond the people in our agency to talk to about commissions, what we sold, any kind of specific FAM experiences and things like that. But one year I got invited on a Hawaiian fam and I got separated from our group. And I met some incredible advisors on that trip. And we started talking about all the things I don't typically talk about with my agency and my colleagues at that other place. We started talking about commission levels. And at the time, because it was 2013, there was no such thing as aligned client, but they would say, you know, I only work with this type of client or my clients spend this much money. And I was like, really? I take everything for the most part. I mean, I do mostly Caribbean, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm destination weddings or I'm honeymoons. Nobody really was encouraging me to paint outside of my own lines. And I had never discussed commission outside of my travel agency. And I learned so much on that trip. I stopped coming back to the room. I stopped having dinner with our, my colleagues. I wanted to spend more time with these other advisors and ask so many questions. I'd been doing this. For years and had never had these open conversations away from my colleagues at my travel agency. And what I learned on that trip really was the beginning of the end for me moving on from that agency. I was already super burnt out and I was so exhausted and that fam was fucking go, go, go. I think we saw 5 islands in 9 days and like it was a lot. But there was plenty of time to talk business with people who were not within my travel agency. And I am still friends and connected to 2 of the advisors on that FAM. And I have since become closer to them and other advisors since that FAM, even while I was no longer an advisor when I was on my 3-year break, because those relationships were built and sustained and maintained by me by choice. I was not forced into that room. I chose them to maintain relationships with. I stayed connected. Now they're both in my Maximize group. And it has been one of those situations that has only gotten better for me once I did come back to travel. I really decided when I came back that I was going to keep this open mindset around collaborating with other advisors and not be so competitive in what we do, how we share. Nothing is a big-ass secret, you guys. Even the sales techniques I teach you, they have come from reading a bazillion books and taking my own courses and doing lots of trainings and being in different networks and being in MLM and everything. I mean, there, these types of things have come from different parts of my life and different relationships and different people who have taught them to me. And then of course I put them all together and I created my sales process that works for me and it works for many others. And had I not shared it, many of us wouldn't even be sitting here together today. And if I had not gone on that Hawaiian fam and heard what I could be making, what I could be selling, and who I could be friends with in this industry, we wouldn't be sitting here either. We really wouldn't. It's like the butterfly effect, right? Like that one little decision that was made to do that one little thing and then Push right off into this other direction. It's like a different timeline. And that timeline, when I left my last travel agency, was really hard because the other thing that happened when I left my travel agency was I lost all of those relationships that I had built within my travel agency. I struggled even staying connected to them online, and my very, very closest friend that I worked with for the entire time, the entire 8 years, had become so close with, loved so much, she stopped talking to me. It took her a long time to stop talking to me, but she did eventually stop talking to me. And I don't even know why, because she stopped talking to me after I moved to Florida, which was a couple of years after I took my, you know, left that agency. Everyone else I either decided to disconnect with or That reputation of just burning all that shit to the ground really stuck to me. That included BDMs and supplier relationships and just general like networking relationships I had built in Indianapolis. All of them were gone. Anything tied to that travel agency fucking disappeared. And most of it was because of me, because I wanted to remove myself, but it was a loss. I grieved. I still miss. My friend, I deeply question, like, still to this day, like, what the fuck happened? But she didn't need permission to stop talking to me, and neither does anyone else. You don't need approval or permission to talk to anyone else. And if you decide to cut someone else off who you thought you were friends with, you can do that too. But I know from personal experience that when you leave a small boutique travel agency, you do lose a lot more than just a business. You lose the relationships you had within that community, and that's why I'm encouraging you to really step outside the circle and the community that was built in for you. If you are with a smaller agency, I encourage you to find connections that are beyond that. Someone that you admire or have a girl crush on. Start the group chat, y'all. Ask a brave question: Who wants to be? A travel agent friend with me. Stop waiting and hoping someone notices you. Build it your fucking self and do it imperfectly. Be weird about it. Slide into a DM. Do it intentionally. Pay attention in the groups that you're in or at the conferences you are at or at the lunches you're invited to through your BDM. Ask your BDM, is there anybody that you think? Would wanna partner with me and get to know each other and maybe hold each other accountable on our goals? Start with one person and then say, do you know anybody that you think would want to collaborate with us? Then you have 3 of you. I want you to think about how to make friends because we all know how to do that. Take yourself back when you were 4, 5, 6 years old and you were on a random playground in the summer and somebody had a ball and Somebody had a stick and you guys all got together and you decided to have a little game of fake baseball. It just happened organically. You all had this one little connecting thing in common. You would just all happen to be at the playground. And that was enough to build a friendship, even if it was temporary. And then maybe you went back the next week and you saw that kid again, and somehow you're friends for life all over this stick and a ball. That can be you now. Yes, we're over 30. Some of us are over 40. Some of you are over 50, 60. Doesn't fucking matter. You know how to talk to human beings. You know how to ask questions and you recognize when you have something in common with someone, or you recognize that somebody has something that you want and you just want to chat about it. How did you get it? What kind of steps did you take? And if those people don't have time for you, Do not take it personally. It is not about you. They don't owe it to you. That's for sure. There can be no entitlement to becoming friends. It does have to be mutual. But if you are willing to kind of travel industry date around, take notice of people that you're interested in getting to know better. Somebody says something that makes you laugh your ass off in a Facebook group or a comment, reach out, friend them first. Then send them a message. Think about what kinds of advisors you want to surround yourself with. What does an aligned advisor bestie look like? Build that avatar in ChatGPT. Find ways to recognize it when you are networking, when you are at travel events, when you go to lunch. Just start opening your mind because the bigger your community, honestly, that you build yourself, the longer you will be an advisor because you will be supported. You will have the collaboration. You may even find somebody that will back you up so that you can travel for 2 weeks without your laptop. These people can be within your bigger host if you are with like a NextGen or a TPI or a WorldVia. But in my opinion, they should not just be in your small travel agency. Your best friend should not be your owner. You are not equals if someone is paying your paycheck out. We should not always go into business with our friends, but it doesn't mean that we should not collaborate with like-minded women who have similar goals, similar lifestyles, or a lifestyle we want. Avoid toxic conversations that eliminate open-mindedness, that feel closed off, that feel unwelcoming or mean girl. If you feel like you're being bullied in group chats, fucking leave the group chat. I don't care if it is your industry, if it is your travel agency group chat, fucking leave. We do not have to remain in spaces where people do not like us or want to get to know us for who we really are, or don't allow us to ask quote unquote stupid questions or make silly comments or make mistakes. We want to surround ourselves with people who are interested in truly getting to know us. How did we get here? What is our story? Because our stories are so fucking relevant. They are so important and special. We bring so much of our past into our present that we deserve to be around people who want to hear from us. Who like to hear our opinions, especially if they're different. Now that doesn't always mean, by the way, that I practice what I preach because there are some opinions I could give a fuck about, and that is also okay. But if somebody doesn't align, it's okay to walk away. It's okay to ban or block that person from your social media. It really is. Even if it's your fucking owner, fuck that. If they are not going to see you for who you really are, give you a chance, benefit of the doubt. If they just want to disagree to disagree with you. Those are not collaborative individuals, but there are so many amazing women in our industry that are open and ready to making friends. And that is something I discuss all the time in my DMs. And so many of you are like, I don't want to bother you, but I really just want to chat with you. Please chat with me. Send me a message. My DMs are open for a reason. So much stuff goes into my spam though. Sometimes I forget to check it. So don't worry. It might take me a couple of days and I am open-minded to building more community. That is why Maximizes exists. And I want you to find your people there. I really believe there are all kinds of opportunities. And in fact, this week someone posted that there's going to be a Kansas City meetup. And I was like, shut the front door. That is so exciting. Take a picture. I also know that Melissa Esposito in Pennsylvania has an event about once a month at her coffee shop and lots of travel advisors come together and then she invites BDMs to those events. And it's not people who work together. It's just all the local TAs get together and chat business and create these opportunities to bounce ideas off each other. Some of them aren't best friends, never will be, but they just have these moments, these masterminds, these networking chances. And I think that is so cool, and I think it's something you could grow and do yourself as well. Does it take time? Of course. Is it worth it? Hell yes, it's worth it. Because the less lonely we feel, the more we feel empowered. Our confidence grows. If we have people around us who care about us and our success and our business and are willing to lift us up when we are down, means we will last longer doing this. You will feel so much better. You will feel cared for in these spaces, but you have to set the tone. You have to set the standard. You have to be willing to put yourself out there. And it is scary, guys. I mean, when I started my coaching business, it was fucking terrifying. I was like, who's gonna listen to me? Well, that 37,000 downloads later, that's 14,000, uh, followers on Facebook later, that's 7,500 followers on Instagram later, and that's all things I could have never believed 3 years ago, that this community not only grew itself with like-minded travel advisors, but that you want to hear what I have to say. And I guarantee if you create something like this in your community, in your space, you too will have people who are just ready to hear what you think. What have your experiences been? What is your day-to-day life like? You'll find someone to travel with. To be friends with. I have become so close to my travel agent bestie, Farren, and we have a new tradition to go to Disney every year and do the Christmas parties. And we are currently planning our next Christmas party event, and I cannot fucking wait. It's like something I so look forward to. And I'm not a Disney specialist. I have no interest in selling Disney, but I love this experience with her. And we talk about mom life and heated rivalry is what we're texting about this weekend. Just genuinely. Connecting, just laughing our asses off and planning this event is so much fun for us. And it's like, I, I hope it never stops. I hosted the Momentum Retreat in 2024 in September and 22 fabulous travel advisors came. And now some of them are traveling together. Like they'll text me a photo of them on some river cruise in Europe and I'm like, are you Shitting me! This is amazing. Where, of course, sometimes I look back on that retreat and thank God that if it could go wrong, it did go wrong. That was when Hurricane Helene hit Mexico and our resort was flooded and it was kind of a mess and people left early. And I was like, we didn't get to have the retreat I envisioned, but it did not stop these women from becoming friends, building their network. And now what? They're going on river cruises together. Like, how fucking cool is that? That can be you. And any moment that you choose to be open-hearted and open-minded, it's a risk. I know it's hard to trust each other, especially if you've been traumatized by a travel agency situation that went horribly, or if women you thought were your friends walked away from you just because you left the agency or whatever. But what I can tell you is the relationships that I have built that have sustained have all been worth it. Absolutely some of the best relationships I have in my life right now have come from moments where I was intentional in making the decision to stay connected to someone I really enjoyed being around, that I had things in common with. And I want that so, so much for you. I do not want you to feel alone in this job. Hopping on a FaceTime at 8 in the morning with a coffee in hand to discuss business with your bestie is so much fun. I did that this morning with someone that isn't in the travel industry, but we have just So connected over the coaching aspects of our businesses. And we bounced ideas off each other. We're in different markets, but we have similar goals. And it was just so much fun to discuss what's going on and whether or not our ideas need to be fleshed out. I have a couple of industry friends who do similar things for you guys who I talk to often, and it's so nice to vent, to share ideas. To ask questions, to just be there for each other. Celebrate the wins. Talk each other off the fucking ledge. Ask for help in learning something new like ads or Kajabi or whatever. Find your people. Don't assume every single person that's in your travel agency is going to be your friend just because you're in the same travel agency. Give yourself an opportunity to get to know People. Ask lots of questions about them and don't make it exclusively about what you need. Make sure you know how to be somebody's friend and collaborator. Connect with them on life, not just business. I say this all the time, but I'm friends with my BDMs. I'm not just going to lunch to get a free lunch. And I have become such good friends with my Sandals BDM that we text and we go have wine together. And we don't talk about work. We talk about life and kids and husbands. And it is so much more fulfilling and builds a stronger foundation for the business side when you are personal, when you are vulnerable, when you are telling your stories, when you are willing to be authentic and honest and not hold back who you really are. If you cuss, cuss. If you don't, don't. But be your fucking self. Trust yourself that you are an adult woman who knows how to be somebody's friend. I know we crave relationships. I know part of the reason you're a travel advisor is because it's a people-y business and we don't have to be friends with everyone, but having some connections, some relationships within this industry that you can actually rely on and lean on that aren't transactional. Is so huge for the success of a long-term travel advisor. And if you feel alone, nobody's coming to do that for you. Nobody's coming to knock on your door and say, hey, Marcie, you want to go to lunch today or have a cup of coffee? That's just not happening if you don't put yourself out there, if they don't know you fucking exist. So if you need that, build it. If you want more friends, make them. If you need someone to travel to on your next trip, Find someone. I know you can do this. I know you want to do this. This is not just me. We all crave connection, reliability, somebody we can ask questions to and lean on and get to know. Finding common ground is how this industry gets stronger. It's how we make each other better, hold each other accountable, and encourage and grow as an entire industry. I really hope this helped you guys today. I really hope that you are inspired. To start meeting more people. And if you feel like you want to connect, shoot me a DM. I would love to hear from you. I'm always available, email, whatever. Thank you so much for listening. If you have not had a chance, please, please write a review, drop a 5-star, because it is how this is getting out into the world. And I really don't have any other way of getting the word out. So the more you're willing to share these episodes and talk up the podcast, the The more inspired I am to keep doing them and the more I will be able to figure out something for the future with this, because I have no fucking idea what I'm doing most of the time. And I'm just happy you're here listening. And I see the downloads coming in and it's just so cool that you guys are on board for hearing more of these kinds of tips, because I know that we don't talk about all this stuff all the time, and I want you to feel comfortable coming to me. If you need something, we are here for each other. This community is already built. 3 years going fucking strong and nobody is stopping us now. Have a great day, y'all. Love you. 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 5-star review, and if you need anything, I'm here for you. Bye!