Last month our travel blog received an award at the exceptional Ontrapalooza conference in Santa Barbara.
Each year they give out Modern Ontrapreneur Awards. This year they had the most applications ever, and I was stoked to learn we had made the finalist. I totally never expected.
You spend every day caught in the wheels of running your business and dealing with the present challenges and goals that you forget to pause and look at how far you’ve come.
This award helped me to take that pause with immense gratitude and humility. It’s crazy to think of the success we’ve had when all I do is share my love for travel.
I never imagined the word entrepreneur could be applied to me. I thought that was reserved for really smart people who innovated and created things that drastically improved people’s lives.
I’m just a girl who loves travel. Who can talk about travel all day long. Who receives immense joy to hear that I’ve helped a reader create amazing memories when they travel.
Somehow that means that I am drastically improving people’s lives. It’s incredible what you can do when you follow that intense desire to create a life that thrills you, to serve, and to become the best version of yourself.
We didn’t win the grand prize, but we won the category for publishing, which I am stoked about. When I first started traveling, the Lonely Planet guided many of my amazing journeys and shaped my memories. I loved it so much.
When we first started dreaming, way back in 2000, of creating a business around travel, I thought I could only get there by becoming a Lonely Planet writer.
When we started our travel blog, we wanted to create something similar to Lonely Planet, inspiring people through our own travel story and showing them what is possible, but also to help shape their journeys through our tips and travel recommendations.
Somehow in my dreams to one day be a Lonely Planet writer and travel the world, I ended up creating my own publishing platform that allowed me to do just that. We have had several readers tell us that the only resources they use now to plan their travels is us and the Lonely Planet.
It’s just simply mind blowing where life can take you if you let it.
I was told to prepare a speech as all finalists would have a chance to speak. It felt a little daunting to prepare an acceptance speech – so very formal and Oscar like!
Here’s what I told people – believe in the magic of possibliities and remove all limitations on your entrepreneur journey.
There are a hundred reasons why you may not succeed, just as there are many that you may.
There are a million things that can go wrong and you can fail over and over again. Actually failing over and over again is how we refine and grow.
And yes you may not be smart enough or have the required skills …
… when you begin. But you can certainly learn, grow and succeed. It’s a journey worth embracing.
I never dreamed we’d have the success we have had with our blog when we started. But, I did not let all those limations stop me. I simply walked forward with a belief, not necessarily in myself, but in possibilities.
That’s all you have to believe in.
Replace the limitations with being open to possibilities.
There is never a perfect time and it doesn’t matter. We started blogging beyond broke when we were homeless, jobless and living with Craig’s parents.
You will never have enough time. For the past seven years we’ve been building our blogging business through a financial crises, a miscarriage, pregnancy, a health crisis that resulted in four surgeries, and traveling full time while running a full time business, being a full time mother, and homeschooling.
There are no limitations, only possiblities.
I really want you to believe that. It’s a perspective that will change your life.
