March 7, 2025 • 32 mins
Join host Rebekah Costley for a special International Women’s Day edition of Growth Powered by FareHarbor, where we celebrate the resilience, innovation, and success of women entrepreneurs in the tourism industry.
In this episode, five inspiring women share their entrepreneurial journeys, challenges they've overcome, and strategies for success—from running food tours in Puerto Rico to leading adventure tourism businesses in Australia and Canada.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- How these women built thriving tourism businesses
- The biggest challenges they’ve faced—and how they overcame them
- Strategies for scaling, adapting, and staying competitive in tourism
- What it means to balance business, family, and personal growth
- The future of women-led tourism and leadership
Featured Guests:
Paulina Salach (Spoon Experience, Puerto Rico) – Culinary tourism & food-focused experiences
Kaija Pack (Break Life, Houston) – Innovating with alternative therapy businesses
Margit & Amy (Walk and Eat Spain, Madrid) – Expanding food tourism globally
Tanya McCready (Winterdance Dogsled Tours, Canada) – Growing a seasonal adventure business
Kate Forrester (Gold Coast Watersports, Australia) – Transitioning into adventure tourism
Watch the extended version of this episode on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/@FareHarborOfficial
Connect with FareHarbor:
https://fareharbor.com/blog/category/podcast/ | Join the Conversation at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fareharbor | [Follow FareHarbor on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/fareharbor/posts/]
👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with fellow tourism entrepreneurs!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Growth powered by Fair Harbor where we explore the strategies behind thrivingtour and activity businesses.
From industry experts to operators in the field, we're diving into real stories, practicaladvice, tips for leveraging Fair Harbor software to fuel your business growth.
(00:21):
Whether you're just starting out or scaling up, this podcast is with insights to help yousucceed.
Now, here's your host.
Fair Harbors Community Manager, Rebecca Cotter.
sleep.
Hello everyone, welcome to Growth powered by Fair Harbor.
(00:43):
Today we're celebrating International Women's Day by highlighting inspiring women intourism who have built and led their businesses with passion, resilience, and innovation.
Throughout this episode, you'll hear from some incredible female entrepreneurs who haveturned their dreams into thriving tourism operations, sharing their journeys, challenges,
and giving some great advice.
(01:04):
Paulina.
co-founder of Spoon.
Could you tell our listeners a little bit about you and a little bit about your businessin Puerto Rico?
Hi, Salina from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Originally though from Poland, grew up in New York, but I've been living in Puerto Ricofor almost 20 years.
I fell in love with the island, its people, its culture, and its food.
(01:30):
And my husband and I started to in about 12 years ago.
We operate a culinary tourism company here on the island.
Maya, I'm so excited to have you on today.
You came at the recommendation of our CEO who loved speaking to you at Spark last year inNew Orleans.
(01:50):
Could you tell us a little bit about you, a little bit about Breaklife, the business youown, where you're located?
My name is Kaia Pack.
I am a Detroit native.
So I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan.
Kind of lived in multiple states, ended up in Houston, Texas by default.
And that's where the birth of Break Life happened.
(02:12):
And so I am the founder and CBO, but Break Life was created three years ago.
And Break Life is what I call alternative and destructive therapy.
I absolutely love the country, the city that these ladies operate in.
I'm also passionate about food, so this is going to be a really fun episode.
(02:32):
And I'm passionate about women, so it's even going to be a more fun episode.
I'm just so excited to have Margaret and Amy here from Walk and Eat Spain.
Thank you so much for being here.
How are you both doing today?
They're great.
you.
This guest is from the far north, as they say, at least that's what we say here in the US.
(02:53):
Really excited to have them.
They run a business that I think is so cool as a fan of Balto and as a fan of Canadaitself.
We have Tanya McCready here.
Hello, Tanya, how's it going?
That's wonderful, Rebecca.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
Thanks for asking.
(03:14):
I'm so glad we have been able to connect today.
I am a huge fan of yours and of your business.
And your account manager, Catherine, has also sung your praises.
So thank you so much for making the time to speak with me today.
Thank you for being here.
Kate with Gold Coast Water Sports.
How are you doing today?
Very good.
(03:34):
Rebecca, thank you so much for inviting me on today.
I was very humbled to be asked.
It was really lovely to hear that my name had been put forward, so thanks.
To go ahead and get us started on this beautiful International Women's Day episode, couldyou tell our listeners a little bit about you and a little bit about your business?
(03:55):
not originally from Puerto Rico, but when I came here, I really got immersed in theculture.
I wanted to get to know the island, so I started traveling the island, meeting people,local entrepreneurs, meeting local business owners.
Another thing that kind of goes into why food.
My mother-in-law, moved, when Gustavo moved back and I moved here with him, she wasundergoing Vaxter Tree and we were living with them at the time.
(04:24):
And I had to be the one that would cook.
So I would assist in the cooking for the family.
And she would go step by step and teach me about, hey, Paulina, here's ajiluste, which aresmall sweet peppers that go into the sofrito, which is the base of all Puerto Rican
cooking.
It's this really flavorful base that's got sofrito.
she's like, okay, go outside and grab some regal, it's a leaf.
(04:47):
And go grab some oregano.
then that's how I kind of, and she's like, okay, smell it.
and now taste it and then add some pralabasa and then add some pumpkin and then we'regoing to make a guiso and then we're going to make a piñon and this.
And then I kind of really jumped right into that.
So I would say that sparked my love for food and in Puerto Rican families, food, it's sucha big part of the culture.
(05:11):
That's where everybody ends up.
Even if it's tiny kitchen, you have like 20 family members, you have the aunt, the uncle,the cousin, and then our friends would come visit Puerto Rico.
We would take them around and then...
We kind of said one day, let's try this out.
Maybe we can make a business out of it.
And we kind of did it without, there was no business plan, right?
Like we started everything and did everything from the accounting to social media toresponding to those TripAdvisor reviews and answering the calls and giving the tours.
(05:37):
And that's how Gustav and I started.
I'm a mother of six.
I've had 23 foster children and I've adopted a child.
And then, so I was married 29 years, eight months and like three days.
And I was at my therapist and I told my therapist that I was pissed off.
I was like, I'm pissed off.
didn't give me, he didn't ask me permission till he died.
And I'm left with all these children.
(05:58):
And my therapist looked me in the eye, mean square in my eye.
And she said, you're gonna have to learn how to cope with it.
And it was at that moment, it was an aha moment when I realized
that there are so many men and women that are being told that they need to cope withthings that they don't need to.
We grow up with men being told, stop crying like a little girl, and we grow up with girlscrying and then you're weak or you're soft.
(06:22):
And I say that because it's an emotion, right?
So was like, wow, I wanted someone to say, hey, you wanna go tear some stuff up, you wannago break some car windows, you wanna curse somebody out, or you wanna fight.
I wouldn't have done any of those things, but I did need someone to tap into that emotion,and I didn't get that.
And when I didn't get it, I realized that a lot of men and women are being told to pray.
And don't get me wrong, I definitely believe in the higher power and I do believe inprayer.
(06:46):
But some, we need to do other things because, you know, prayer without works is dead,right?
Well, lo and behold, I found out that there were rage rooms all over the world.
So I made it my mission.
I looked up all of the rage rooms that I can find.
So there were rage rooms in London, in Amsterdam, Australia.
There was a rage room in the UK.
There was a rage room in Spain.
And I went on a mission and I went to...
(07:08):
every single one of those rage rooms.
Just trying to find out how they were attacking the rage room.
And what I found was that a lot of people are using it as an activity, and it is.
However, I am real big into emotional intelligence and to making sure that people displaytheir emotions in a healthy way.
So I said, wow, how can we do this different than anybody else in the world?
(07:30):
So what we're doing is we attack it from the fact that once energy is released, it can'tbe returned, right?
And then we allow people to come and be either happy or angry.
Because sometimes you want to tear things up when you're elated, just as much as you wantto tear things up when you're angry.
We've created an environment to not only make you feel welcome and make you feel safe, wecreate an environment that encourages you to let it out.
(07:54):
What goes on in break life stays at break life.
Amy and I in 2015 and we were both super interested in
I mean, as folks, United States living here in Madrid, both of us, our passion was Spainand discovering all of the very best parts of our adopted city.
(08:17):
And so we kind of dreamed of what sort of business we would want to open if we could.
And in 2019, I took the leap and started to walk and eat and Amy joined a few years later.
But
story came together that we
all of what we had wanted to do with food and wine and tourism in Madrid, we discoveredkind of talking to each other and discovering the city.
(08:43):
And so the story of Walk and Eat is that story of discovery and of figuring out, you know,what we wanted from our careers and how we wanted to work in a tourism space that was both
sustainable for the city and sustainable for our lives.
And so kind of put our heads together and brought
Walk and Eat to Life.
(09:05):
The name Walk and Eat kind of says so much about what our company is about becauseMargaret and I both believe that walking around and eating food is the reason we travel.
You land in the city and you get kind of into the city center or kind of wherever you'restaying and you're walking around and you're like, I know there is a spectacular local bar
just around the corner here somewhere that has the best, most authentic food.
(09:29):
I just have to find it.
And you're just like,
scouring the city, trying to find this perfect little place that's just packed withlocals, that everybody's eating this just like perfect food that you can't find anywhere
else in the world.
And that's why we travel and you both of us love to travel and that's what we love aboutMadrid as well.
And so that's really what drives everything that we do.
(09:51):
Food tours are sort of the most delicious iteration of
connecting people through food.
And so how can we show the people that come and visit our amazing city?
What makes it so special and so unique?
This all started, I guess, over 30 years ago when we literally walked into a pet store.
We were still living in the city and I was going to University of Guelph and fell in lovewith a silly Siberian husky puppy and made the decision to add her to our family.
(10:16):
We just got married and one thing led to another.
We got a second one to keep her company and then saw a movie about dog sledding and addeda third and a fourth to try dog sledding.
And then by the time we left the city, we were up to seven and
Yeah, our dogs had gone, our lives had gone to the dogs and we had tried dog sledding andjust fell in love with it and decided to turn our love and our passion for our dogs into a
(10:38):
business.
So from there we went from seven to 42.
So we bought and adopted dogs from different bloodlines, different kennels.
So we had a lot of diversity and then from there, know, puppies obviously, and then we'verescued and adopted.
I've lost track of how many and it's over 50 dogs since then.
So yeah, and when they come here, whether they're born, adopt or rescue, they have a homefor life.
(10:59):
So we don't sell dogs, don't adopt them out there.
They're our family.
My partner and I, many, many years when we first met, we were just watching the watersports operators out on the water.
we are both water babies at heart.
And yeah, we were just having a conversation about Kai would love to do.
And he said he just wanted to be on the water, on the jet skis would be even a bonus.
(11:23):
And then I loved the idea of having a business.
Kai's parents are business owners.
So he grew up understanding what that entailed as well.
and also had his own, he then went into the family business once he was an adult.
And then the opportunity came up one day when we were approached by a business broker,whether or not water sports is something that we would like to do.
(11:47):
And so we met with the old owners and yeah, from then on, what we saw was so muchpotential.
There was a lot of growth that could be made.
interested to know like your biggest challenge is.
Were there any challenges that you did not expect that you're really proud that youovercame?
(12:09):
The biggest hurdles for us personally are being number one in the Caribbean, which is avery seasonal market.
So I think I share that with a lot of operators that we have a really great high season.
We are in February, like we're doing great.
Everyone is doing great.
And then we're going to do really great until I would say the end of spring break aroundEaster holiday.
(12:33):
And then summer's still good.
then
fall is really, there's like a really big dip.
So every year we have a challenge and we say, no, we need to do something to mitigate,right?
It's also hurricane season.
So we were affected by a hurricane.
you know, just like everyone else, were affected, you know, by the pandemic, but that timeof the year comes and we need to do better with marketing to locals and creating
(13:00):
experiences for locals.
And that would definitely be my advice for operators that
Perhaps focus, you know, if you have cruise ships in your region, don't only focus oncruise ships in your region.
So tap into the local market that's there all year instead of just focusing on tourism.
We were looking for a building and I was denied 85.
(13:24):
my God.
85 people denied me and nobody denied me for credit.
Nobody denied me because of money.
They denied me because of the type of business it was, right?
And they were like, no, it's a rage room and it's going to be very dangerous and it'sgoing to be this and it's going to be that.
And I didn't have anyone in the industry as my mentor.
I didn't know what to say.
(13:45):
I didn't know how to sell it.
I didn't know how to talk about it.
So finally I met this guy and we were looking at one of our buildings and he was like, no,you can't have this building.
I said, you know what?
You're going to lunch with me.
You're going to sit down with me and you're to let me talk to you about break life.
And I was like, and at the end of the conversation, if I can't have the building, lunch onme.
(14:06):
And if at the end of the conversation, I can't have the building, lunch on you.
He was like, that makes sense.
I'm going to give you my building and buy you lunch.
And so I sat there and just talked to him about break life and what it was.
What I overcame was trying to portray that break life was needed in the community.
so finally after being with, so no means next to me.
(14:26):
So if you say no to me, I smile and just keep it moving.
Cause I'm going to win at the end of the day.
I'm just not going to win with you.
And I'm going to make you look at me and say, man, I should have ran away.
If you didn't run away from me, that's your fault.
Cause I'm winning in the end.
Right?
So I sat down with them and talked to him and he was like, he was like, okay, break lifeit is.
Number 86 gave me the building.
(14:49):
So that was probably my biggest thing, just getting frustrated.
And the team was really sad.
They were like, oh my God, everybody keeps saying no.
I was like, not for us, not for us, not for us, not for us.
And I never, I don't let things really get me down for long because I understand thatthings change in a moment, right?
In the blink of an eye, things change.
(15:10):
I think we had a lot of false starts.
know, the world opened up and then closed and then opened and then closed multiple timesthroughout 2020 and 2021.
And the spring of 2021 was a time of true optimism.
You know, it was like, okay, 2020 is over.
We did it.
We made it through that crazy, horrible year.
(15:31):
It's time to start fresh.
It's time to start anew.
And then we had, what was it called?
Omicron?
So we got all these bookings and we were like, we're doing it, we're gonna have abusiness, it's gonna be awesome.
Exactly, and then this next wave of COVID hit and everything canceled and everything justwent back to zero again.
We did that full of hope and full of like, let's see if this will work and let's see whathappens, but I'm not gonna quit my other job just yet and we're definitely not gonna pay
(15:58):
for an office and startup costs are literally zero because we're working from home andwe're not even printing anything.
the printers are closed because it's still 2021.
And so I think from there, we just had to sort of make it up as we went along a lot ofways and just keep going.
And to remember, wanted to come to Madrid.
(16:19):
We were like, great, let's go do some fun things.
And at first, that was not very many people.
Something that we don't stop and think about enough, I think, is to just take one stepback and be like, wow, we built something that we really believe in and that we both
really love.
Really exciting.
Really overwhelming sometimes, but really exciting.
A small town has its drawbacks, but in my experience, there's so many more benefitsbecause you know people and they want your business to survive.
(16:44):
They also know how many guests we bring in from outside the county.
know, economically, it's great for local restaurants and accommodations in the winter tohave us bring in 2,000 guests from all over the world every winter too.
And then there's the smaller things, right?
There's the Santa Claus parades and the fundraisers that as a business you get to be partof in your community and you hope that you're able to give back to them as much as they
(17:05):
have given to you.
We have four children.
So our oldest was born as we started the business and all four children had grown up inthe business, which brings its own kind of challenges and rewards, I guess you would say.
So because our office is home-based and in the first winter when we started Dogsledding,our plan had been that Hank and I would both guide tours.
But once Logan joined us, I was like, he's two months old.
(17:26):
I don't want to leave him.
So very quickly we figured out that we would divide the business per se.
So Hank does most of the guiding of the tours and our staff.
And I run kind of the business side of it and raise the kids.
And then Hank started racing thousand mile races in Alaska and the U-Conn when the kidswere bit older.
So support, I mean, we have always been each other's best support.
(17:48):
Not being in the tourism industry at all beforehand, we jumped in blind.
And so really we didn't understand the equipment.
We didn't understand the rules and regulations.
We had no prior training or understanding, which I think at the end of the day ended upbeing a benefit to us.
(18:09):
What I had seen on the Gold Coast, I'd been here for around 20 years before we went intothis business.
And I had seen that a lot of the operators.
They're great and they do such a great job, but I think they were held back a little bitwith technology, stuff like that.
So we were some of the first ones to really push more of the integrated software that wasavailable out there.
(18:33):
And I think that really helped us at the start.
Now, of course, everyone's caught up now.
So we're all on the same playing field, but I think that may have given us an edge at thestart.
A lot of them were still doing a lot of the paper waivers, all that kind of stuff.
but us just being that little step ahead gave us a little bit of an edge at the timeprobably when we needed it the most.
Shonda Rhimes recently gave a really powerful speech, I believe last May, at a graduation.
(19:00):
And she talked about her experience as being such a powerful business and having it all.
And she was trying to give a realistic expectation to these recent graduates, especiallythe women who want families and they also want to be CEOs.
And Shonda was saying, sometimes having it all means
You have to succeed really well at one thing and at the other thing you might be slightly.
(19:22):
So I'm curious, what does having it all really mean to you, especially in the scope ofbeing a female business owner?
Having it all means having someone to share it with, whatever that is.
And if you don't have someone to share it with, to me, life is pointless.
And so if you have someone to share it with, like come home at the end of the day and say,hey, this happened today.
(19:43):
So if I had a choice to say, share my life with someone or have a million dollars, I wouldshare my life because I can easily go get a million dollars, right?
But you can't easily have it all.
So having it all to me is having the people around me healthy and happy.
And if they're not healthy and happy,
that we're making sure we take the steps and strides to do everything we can to get themas healthy as possible.
(20:04):
I'm proud of Break Life that the fact that my company gainfully employs my family.
So having it all is just people that I love being close to me, being able to touch themand see them and talk to them and hear their voices, see their smiles, understanding their
pain, understanding their heartaches and seeing what I can do to solve it.
And if I can't solve it, just be a shoulder to lean on.
(20:24):
If I can't be around people I love, I have nothing no matter how much money I have.
I thought that it was just working 24 seven.
And then when you kind of step back and then you're like, what is success?
Success is yes, maintaining those relationships, making sure that your team is happy, thatyour team is fulfilled, that they have what they need, make sure that your partners are
(20:45):
well, checking in on them, but also making sure that your family and your family unit isfine and that you're okay too.
it's creating that balance between that entire kind of.
form of life and taking time also for yourself.
When you meet someone for the first time in Spain, the first question you ask is, is yourname?
(21:05):
The second question you ask is, what do like to do?
And that's how you get to know someone.
Asking somebody what their job is is considered pretty rude most of the time.
And so it's not a question that you would ask sort of right when you meet someone.
Whereas in the States, when I'm back visiting family and friends, I get asked all thetime, what's your name?
What do you do?
And that's sort of how people define themselves.
(21:26):
And in Spain, you talk a lot more about your passions and your interests and your hobbies.
than you do necessarily about your job.
And so that concept of being able to have a work-life balance is built into society here,which makes it a lot easier to build it into our lives.
think being able to do a job that I like and live in a city that I really love and have alifestyle that gives me the opportunity to enjoy my work and have an interesting life and
(21:54):
feel good about going to work every day, that to me is having it all.
is what you're doing, making you fulfilled, making you happy.
That has to be first, because if not, you're miserable.
And if you're miserable, you can't put love and happiness and joy into the world if you'realready coming from a place of miserableness.
So that's number one.
Are you joyful?
Are you happy?
(22:15):
Are you loving what you do?
And then for the other one is, are you lighting up the people around you, your family,your customers, friends?
Because again, if you live in a place where you feel joy and you give joy,
Is there any greater success than that?
I absolutely do not think we can have it all.
(22:37):
And I think anybody believing that they can, that's when the pressure just combusts.
I've watched my parents also business owners as well.
And the pressure is too much, especially as a woman, you know, with children, I can'tspeak on anyone else's stories except for my own.
(22:57):
But yeah, I had to lose that have it all a very long time ago.
The idea of perfection and succeeding to me, I just had, I don't believe in those words.
And yeah, it's just, it's at the end of the day, a balancing act.
I think of my life always just as this seesaw.
You can be great at one thing, but while that part of your life is great, something elseis definitely suffering.
(23:23):
So yeah, I just think, you know, do your best at everything, but yeah, I just don't thinkyou can have it all at this time.
Which is okay.
I don't think anyone needs to have it all.
I think success to me is the happiness and health of everybody that you love around you.
It's not a financial aspect.
It's not a level of business that you need to strive for.
(23:45):
I just think if you have healthy, happy loved ones, then you're happy and that'ssuccessful to me.
What advice would you give someone who might be wanting to change directions in theircareer and might want to branch out and own their own business?
And what questions do you think they should be asking themselves when making that kind ofdrastic change in their life?
(24:09):
We kind of did everything when we started and established protocol to hire more people.
Now we have a management, we have a great reservation system.
We have an internal management system that we use and we have so many protocols that we'veinstated.
And if we could back earlier, I think we would have grown faster, right?
(24:30):
So higher grade people outsource.
Don't do it all on your own.
That's something I wish we would have done.
Don't expect anybody to believe in your dream.
You have to believe in it from the time you wake up to the time you wake up again.
Don't get upset for people for not believing in your dream.
Don't get angry.
Whatever your dream is, it's yours and yours alone.
(24:52):
And you have to live it.
You have to take the wins and the losses.
Whatever it is, once you believe in it, then you got to get up and put your cape on andyou got to go make it happen.
Because no one else is going to believe in what you believe in.
No one sees through your eyes.
No one sees what you see.
No one wants what you want.
So you gotta go get it.
And then at the end of the day, if it doesn't work out, then you're able to say, gave itall I had.
(25:14):
I that it's different because we lived in Spain for quite a while before starting tolaunch the business.
You know, I moved to Spain in my late 20s.
because I didn't know what else I wanted to do other than live in Spain.
And so I moved to Spain, but I worked in other things and I figured out how to live inSpain and figured out how to make a life here.
(25:40):
And so I think the question of is like, are you going to drop out business?
I don't know that I would recommend that to other people because it's a crazy thing to do.
And I think that it sounds really fun to just eat, and think that can feel reallyexciting.
the moment but
really hard to live in another country and find a path.
(26:04):
And so I don't think that that should ever be taken lightly.
And so I think for us, I, that was, we, we had that journey.
could give any advice to any person who's thinking about how to do what to do something.
The thing that one should do is do it, like believe in your, your powers and figure out.
(26:25):
kind of how to make a realistic decision for yourself, but we're so much more powerfulthan we think we are.
we're much fear of the unknown, which is healthy, you know, that's important, but we'remuch more powerful than we think we are.
You just kind of do whatever you got to do to make it work and don't be too hard onyourself.
Well, I've never had anyone get up and walk out of a meeting and most of my meetings werewith men because I brought a baby.
(26:51):
If anything, I think it was the opposite because most of them were fathers and they'dlike, I remember when mine was that age and gosh, I never thought I could have taken them
to work with me.
And, know, don't apologize for what you got to do to make your business work.
that is the first thing I learned to do whatever you have to do.
And if anyone judges you.
They're not somebody you want to do business with anyway.
(27:11):
Anybody would need to look at where they are in their life at the moment.
If it's the right time for them, whether they have a family of their own or if they're ina relationship.
If you were starting a new business that that becomes your priority.
I just think it comes down to timing, how much you want it.
(27:32):
And then you have to say failure isn't an option.
There's so many times that we could have just given it up and walked away.
but it's those times that you just dig in your heels and just keep moving forward.
face that storm and you get through it.
Yeah, that's the only way that the business is going to stay alive and thrive.
(27:54):
and do you have any exciting projects or any growth plans on the horizon that you'reexcited to share with us?
I'm just really proud of where I helped get Zoom to.
It's come from, I call it Del Patio Productions, which means patio productions.
We started, we took it together without any formal business plan.
(28:19):
And here we are today, one of the top tourism companies in Puerto Rico.
Amazing reviews, we're able to employ great humans, we're able to partner with greatrestaurants and bars.
farm and give them business, shed a spotlight also on them and on their businesses.
So I am in general just really proud of where we've
(28:40):
My goal is just to make sure that break life is not only a household name, but that we canchange the paradigm about the angry person, the angry black woman, the angry black man,
the angry man, the angry woman.
So eventually my goal is to research through data, through sitting down and sitting atevery table where I've never been welcomed before, but now I belong.
(29:01):
and to talk about destructive therapy, alternative therapy, and how it can change theworld.
And if you can't change the world at your house, come to Break Life, because we can changeit there.
Because our motto is, it ain't broke, come break it.
The next more guides and having more for us to be able to offer.
We would love to incorporate day trips and so we're that at some time later this year andmaybe continuing to expand what we offer.
(29:31):
Madrid sits in the middle of a really incredible area and we would love to be able tobring folks out to wineries out to.
olive oil makers and really not just taste the food but experience how it's made, which isso cool because people don't think that even though you're in this giant mega city of
Madrid, less than an hour away, people are making incredible wine, incredible olive oil,incredible cheeses.
(29:52):
And so thinking about ways to you to evolve the ways that we connect people and grow ourcapacity into our more great stuffs.
We've built a really beautiful name for ourselves in the industry.
Yeah.
We're not going anywhere and whether or not these location issues get fixed.
(30:12):
Cause you know, looking back, they were there back then knowing what I know now, nothingprobably would have changed, but at least I would have been prepared for the changes that
were about to come.
And where we are now, we changed our business structure a little bit.
changed the experiences, the people that we get.
Our customer base at the moment now is much different than where it was when we wereoutside of Surfers Paradise.
(30:39):
So we changed the length of the tours and we changed the model of the business slightly tofit in with the new client base.
So yeah, we've worked our way and yeah, we've found our spot.
If you're at the start of your entrepreneurial journey, you have no idea where yourbusiness is going to take you.
When we started 25 years ago, our goal was to start a dog sled tour company that wouldsustain our family and create a great lifestyle.
(31:04):
And we did that, but we could have never envisioned that we would write bestselling booksand speak on stages all over the world.
You know, our dogs were in a movie last year and my husband is not double and we can'ttalk about it yet.
But you know, all these just incredible things that we could have never ever dreamed ofhappening 25 years ago, just because we said yes to chasing a business that allowed us to
(31:26):
build a lifestyle around something we loved.
Thank you to all of our incredible guests for sharing their journeys, their challenges,and for their wonderful advice.
Their stories remind us of the resilience, passion, and innovation that women bring intothe tourism industry each and every day.
We hope you're feeling as inspired as we are here at Fair Harbor by these women.
(31:49):
Thank you so much for listening.
Make sure to like, subscribe, and be sure to check out our guest businesses while you'reat it.
Until next time, I wish you a very happy International Women's Day and I'll check you outon the next episode of Growth Powered by Fair Herbert.
Welcome to Growth powered by Fair Harbor where we explore the strategies behind thrivingtour and activity businesses.
From industry experts to operators in the field, we're diving into real stories, practicaladvice, tips for leveraging Fair Harbor software to fuel your business growth.
(00:21):
Whether you're just starting out or scaling up, this podcast is with insights to help yousucceed.
Now, here's your host.
Fair Harbors Community Manager, Rebecca Cotter.
sleep.
Hello everyone, welcome to Growth powered by Fair Harbor.
(00:43):
Today we're celebrating International Women's Day by highlighting inspiring women intourism who have built and led their businesses with passion, resilience, and innovation.
Throughout this episode, you'll hear from some incredible female entrepreneurs who haveturned their dreams into thriving tourism operations, sharing their journeys, challenges,
and giving some great advice.
(01:04):
Paulina.
co-founder of Spoon.
Could you tell our listeners a little bit about you and a little bit about your businessin Puerto Rico?
Hi, Salina from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Originally though from Poland, grew up in New York, but I've been living in Puerto Ricofor almost 20 years.
I fell in love with the island, its people, its culture, and its food.
(01:30):
And my husband and I started to in about 12 years ago.
We operate a culinary tourism company here on the island.
Maya, I'm so excited to have you on today.
You came at the recommendation of our CEO who loved speaking to you at Spark last year inNew Orleans.
(01:50):
Could you tell us a little bit about you, a little bit about Breaklife, the business youown, where you're located?
My name is Kaia Pack.
I am a Detroit native.
So I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan.
Kind of lived in multiple states, ended up in Houston, Texas by default.
And that's where the birth of Break Life happened.
(02:12):
And so I am the founder and CBO, but Break Life was created three years ago.
And Break Life is what I call alternative and destructive therapy.
I absolutely love the country, the city that these ladies operate in.
I'm also passionate about food, so this is going to be a really fun episode.
(02:32):
And I'm passionate about women, so it's even going to be a more fun episode.
I'm just so excited to have Margaret and Amy here from Walk and Eat Spain.
Thank you so much for being here.
How are you both doing today?
They're great.
you.
This guest is from the far north, as they say, at least that's what we say here in the US.
(02:53):
Really excited to have them.
They run a business that I think is so cool as a fan of Balto and as a fan of Canadaitself.
We have Tanya McCready here.
Hello, Tanya, how's it going?
That's wonderful, Rebecca.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
Thanks for asking.
(03:14):
I'm so glad we have been able to connect today.
I am a huge fan of yours and of your business.
And your account manager, Catherine, has also sung your praises.
So thank you so much for making the time to speak with me today.
Thank you for being here.
Kate with Gold Coast Water Sports.
How are you doing today?
Very good.
(03:34):
Rebecca, thank you so much for inviting me on today.
I was very humbled to be asked.
It was really lovely to hear that my name had been put forward, so thanks.
To go ahead and get us started on this beautiful International Women's Day episode, couldyou tell our listeners a little bit about you and a little bit about your business?
(03:55):
not originally from Puerto Rico, but when I came here, I really got immersed in theculture.
I wanted to get to know the island, so I started traveling the island, meeting people,local entrepreneurs, meeting local business owners.
Another thing that kind of goes into why food.
My mother-in-law, moved, when Gustavo moved back and I moved here with him, she wasundergoing Vaxter Tree and we were living with them at the time.
(04:24):
And I had to be the one that would cook.
So I would assist in the cooking for the family.
And she would go step by step and teach me about, hey, Paulina, here's ajiluste, which aresmall sweet peppers that go into the sofrito, which is the base of all Puerto Rican
cooking.
It's this really flavorful base that's got sofrito.
she's like, okay, go outside and grab some regal, it's a leaf.
(04:47):
And go grab some oregano.
then that's how I kind of, and she's like, okay, smell it.
and now taste it and then add some pralabasa and then add some pumpkin and then we'regoing to make a guiso and then we're going to make a piñon and this.
And then I kind of really jumped right into that.
So I would say that sparked my love for food and in Puerto Rican families, food, it's sucha big part of the culture.
(05:11):
That's where everybody ends up.
Even if it's tiny kitchen, you have like 20 family members, you have the aunt, the uncle,the cousin, and then our friends would come visit Puerto Rico.
We would take them around and then...
We kind of said one day, let's try this out.
Maybe we can make a business out of it.
And we kind of did it without, there was no business plan, right?
Like we started everything and did everything from the accounting to social media toresponding to those TripAdvisor reviews and answering the calls and giving the tours.
(05:37):
And that's how Gustav and I started.
I'm a mother of six.
I've had 23 foster children and I've adopted a child.
And then, so I was married 29 years, eight months and like three days.
And I was at my therapist and I told my therapist that I was pissed off.
I was like, I'm pissed off.
didn't give me, he didn't ask me permission till he died.
And I'm left with all these children.
(05:58):
And my therapist looked me in the eye, mean square in my eye.
And she said, you're gonna have to learn how to cope with it.
And it was at that moment, it was an aha moment when I realized
that there are so many men and women that are being told that they need to cope withthings that they don't need to.
We grow up with men being told, stop crying like a little girl, and we grow up with girlscrying and then you're weak or you're soft.
(06:22):
And I say that because it's an emotion, right?
So was like, wow, I wanted someone to say, hey, you wanna go tear some stuff up, you wannago break some car windows, you wanna curse somebody out, or you wanna fight.
I wouldn't have done any of those things, but I did need someone to tap into that emotion,and I didn't get that.
And when I didn't get it, I realized that a lot of men and women are being told to pray.
And don't get me wrong, I definitely believe in the higher power and I do believe inprayer.
(06:46):
But some, we need to do other things because, you know, prayer without works is dead,right?
Well, lo and behold, I found out that there were rage rooms all over the world.
So I made it my mission.
I looked up all of the rage rooms that I can find.
So there were rage rooms in London, in Amsterdam, Australia.
There was a rage room in the UK.
There was a rage room in Spain.
And I went on a mission and I went to...
(07:08):
every single one of those rage rooms.
Just trying to find out how they were attacking the rage room.
And what I found was that a lot of people are using it as an activity, and it is.
However, I am real big into emotional intelligence and to making sure that people displaytheir emotions in a healthy way.
So I said, wow, how can we do this different than anybody else in the world?
(07:30):
So what we're doing is we attack it from the fact that once energy is released, it can'tbe returned, right?
And then we allow people to come and be either happy or angry.
Because sometimes you want to tear things up when you're elated, just as much as you wantto tear things up when you're angry.
We've created an environment to not only make you feel welcome and make you feel safe, wecreate an environment that encourages you to let it out.
(07:54):
What goes on in break life stays at break life.
Amy and I in 2015 and we were both super interested in
I mean, as folks, United States living here in Madrid, both of us, our passion was Spainand discovering all of the very best parts of our adopted city.
(08:17):
And so we kind of dreamed of what sort of business we would want to open if we could.
And in 2019, I took the leap and started to walk and eat and Amy joined a few years later.
But
story came together that we
all of what we had wanted to do with food and wine and tourism in Madrid, we discoveredkind of talking to each other and discovering the city.
(08:43):
And so the story of Walk and Eat is that story of discovery and of figuring out, you know,what we wanted from our careers and how we wanted to work in a tourism space that was both
sustainable for the city and sustainable for our lives.
And so kind of put our heads together and brought
Walk and Eat to Life.
(09:05):
The name Walk and Eat kind of says so much about what our company is about becauseMargaret and I both believe that walking around and eating food is the reason we travel.
You land in the city and you get kind of into the city center or kind of wherever you'restaying and you're walking around and you're like, I know there is a spectacular local bar
just around the corner here somewhere that has the best, most authentic food.
(09:29):
I just have to find it.
And you're just like,
scouring the city, trying to find this perfect little place that's just packed withlocals, that everybody's eating this just like perfect food that you can't find anywhere
else in the world.
And that's why we travel and you both of us love to travel and that's what we love aboutMadrid as well.
And so that's really what drives everything that we do.
(09:51):
Food tours are sort of the most delicious iteration of
connecting people through food.
And so how can we show the people that come and visit our amazing city?
What makes it so special and so unique?
This all started, I guess, over 30 years ago when we literally walked into a pet store.
We were still living in the city and I was going to University of Guelph and fell in lovewith a silly Siberian husky puppy and made the decision to add her to our family.
(10:16):
We just got married and one thing led to another.
We got a second one to keep her company and then saw a movie about dog sledding and addeda third and a fourth to try dog sledding.
And then by the time we left the city, we were up to seven and
Yeah, our dogs had gone, our lives had gone to the dogs and we had tried dog sledding andjust fell in love with it and decided to turn our love and our passion for our dogs into a
(10:38):
business.
So from there we went from seven to 42.
So we bought and adopted dogs from different bloodlines, different kennels.
So we had a lot of diversity and then from there, know, puppies obviously, and then we'verescued and adopted.
I've lost track of how many and it's over 50 dogs since then.
So yeah, and when they come here, whether they're born, adopt or rescue, they have a homefor life.
(10:59):
So we don't sell dogs, don't adopt them out there.
They're our family.
My partner and I, many, many years when we first met, we were just watching the watersports operators out on the water.
we are both water babies at heart.
And yeah, we were just having a conversation about Kai would love to do.
And he said he just wanted to be on the water, on the jet skis would be even a bonus.
(11:23):
And then I loved the idea of having a business.
Kai's parents are business owners.
So he grew up understanding what that entailed as well.
and also had his own, he then went into the family business once he was an adult.
And then the opportunity came up one day when we were approached by a business broker,whether or not water sports is something that we would like to do.
(11:47):
And so we met with the old owners and yeah, from then on, what we saw was so muchpotential.
There was a lot of growth that could be made.
interested to know like your biggest challenge is.
Were there any challenges that you did not expect that you're really proud that youovercame?
(12:09):
The biggest hurdles for us personally are being number one in the Caribbean, which is avery seasonal market.
So I think I share that with a lot of operators that we have a really great high season.
We are in February, like we're doing great.
Everyone is doing great.
And then we're going to do really great until I would say the end of spring break aroundEaster holiday.
(12:33):
And then summer's still good.
then
fall is really, there's like a really big dip.
So every year we have a challenge and we say, no, we need to do something to mitigate,right?
It's also hurricane season.
So we were affected by a hurricane.
you know, just like everyone else, were affected, you know, by the pandemic, but that timeof the year comes and we need to do better with marketing to locals and creating
(13:00):
experiences for locals.
And that would definitely be my advice for operators that
Perhaps focus, you know, if you have cruise ships in your region, don't only focus oncruise ships in your region.
So tap into the local market that's there all year instead of just focusing on tourism.
We were looking for a building and I was denied 85.
(13:24):
my God.
85 people denied me and nobody denied me for credit.
Nobody denied me because of money.
They denied me because of the type of business it was, right?
And they were like, no, it's a rage room and it's going to be very dangerous and it'sgoing to be this and it's going to be that.
And I didn't have anyone in the industry as my mentor.
I didn't know what to say.
(13:45):
I didn't know how to sell it.
I didn't know how to talk about it.
So finally I met this guy and we were looking at one of our buildings and he was like, no,you can't have this building.
I said, you know what?
You're going to lunch with me.
You're going to sit down with me and you're to let me talk to you about break life.
And I was like, and at the end of the conversation, if I can't have the building, lunch onme.
(14:06):
And if at the end of the conversation, I can't have the building, lunch on you.
He was like, that makes sense.
I'm going to give you my building and buy you lunch.
And so I sat there and just talked to him about break life and what it was.
What I overcame was trying to portray that break life was needed in the community.
so finally after being with, so no means next to me.
(14:26):
So if you say no to me, I smile and just keep it moving.
Cause I'm going to win at the end of the day.
I'm just not going to win with you.
And I'm going to make you look at me and say, man, I should have ran away.
If you didn't run away from me, that's your fault.
Cause I'm winning in the end.
Right?
So I sat down with them and talked to him and he was like, he was like, okay, break lifeit is.
Number 86 gave me the building.
(14:49):
So that was probably my biggest thing, just getting frustrated.
And the team was really sad.
They were like, oh my God, everybody keeps saying no.
I was like, not for us, not for us, not for us, not for us.
And I never, I don't let things really get me down for long because I understand thatthings change in a moment, right?
In the blink of an eye, things change.
(15:10):
I think we had a lot of false starts.
know, the world opened up and then closed and then opened and then closed multiple timesthroughout 2020 and 2021.
And the spring of 2021 was a time of true optimism.
You know, it was like, okay, 2020 is over.
We did it.
We made it through that crazy, horrible year.
(15:31):
It's time to start fresh.
It's time to start anew.
And then we had, what was it called?
Omicron?
So we got all these bookings and we were like, we're doing it, we're gonna have abusiness, it's gonna be awesome.
Exactly, and then this next wave of COVID hit and everything canceled and everything justwent back to zero again.
We did that full of hope and full of like, let's see if this will work and let's see whathappens, but I'm not gonna quit my other job just yet and we're definitely not gonna pay
(15:58):
for an office and startup costs are literally zero because we're working from home andwe're not even printing anything.
the printers are closed because it's still 2021.
And so I think from there, we just had to sort of make it up as we went along a lot ofways and just keep going.
And to remember, wanted to come to Madrid.
(16:19):
We were like, great, let's go do some fun things.
And at first, that was not very many people.
Something that we don't stop and think about enough, I think, is to just take one stepback and be like, wow, we built something that we really believe in and that we both
really love.
Really exciting.
Really overwhelming sometimes, but really exciting.
A small town has its drawbacks, but in my experience, there's so many more benefitsbecause you know people and they want your business to survive.
(16:44):
They also know how many guests we bring in from outside the county.
know, economically, it's great for local restaurants and accommodations in the winter tohave us bring in 2,000 guests from all over the world every winter too.
And then there's the smaller things, right?
There's the Santa Claus parades and the fundraisers that as a business you get to be partof in your community and you hope that you're able to give back to them as much as they
(17:05):
have given to you.
We have four children.
So our oldest was born as we started the business and all four children had grown up inthe business, which brings its own kind of challenges and rewards, I guess you would say.
So because our office is home-based and in the first winter when we started Dogsledding,our plan had been that Hank and I would both guide tours.
But once Logan joined us, I was like, he's two months old.
(17:26):
I don't want to leave him.
So very quickly we figured out that we would divide the business per se.
So Hank does most of the guiding of the tours and our staff.
And I run kind of the business side of it and raise the kids.
And then Hank started racing thousand mile races in Alaska and the U-Conn when the kidswere bit older.
So support, I mean, we have always been each other's best support.
(17:48):
Not being in the tourism industry at all beforehand, we jumped in blind.
And so really we didn't understand the equipment.
We didn't understand the rules and regulations.
We had no prior training or understanding, which I think at the end of the day ended upbeing a benefit to us.
(18:09):
What I had seen on the Gold Coast, I'd been here for around 20 years before we went intothis business.
And I had seen that a lot of the operators.
They're great and they do such a great job, but I think they were held back a little bitwith technology, stuff like that.
So we were some of the first ones to really push more of the integrated software that wasavailable out there.
(18:33):
And I think that really helped us at the start.
Now, of course, everyone's caught up now.
So we're all on the same playing field, but I think that may have given us an edge at thestart.
A lot of them were still doing a lot of the paper waivers, all that kind of stuff.
but us just being that little step ahead gave us a little bit of an edge at the timeprobably when we needed it the most.
Shonda Rhimes recently gave a really powerful speech, I believe last May, at a graduation.
(19:00):
And she talked about her experience as being such a powerful business and having it all.
And she was trying to give a realistic expectation to these recent graduates, especiallythe women who want families and they also want to be CEOs.
And Shonda was saying, sometimes having it all means
You have to succeed really well at one thing and at the other thing you might be slightly.
(19:22):
So I'm curious, what does having it all really mean to you, especially in the scope ofbeing a female business owner?
Having it all means having someone to share it with, whatever that is.
And if you don't have someone to share it with, to me, life is pointless.
And so if you have someone to share it with, like come home at the end of the day and say,hey, this happened today.
(19:43):
So if I had a choice to say, share my life with someone or have a million dollars, I wouldshare my life because I can easily go get a million dollars, right?
But you can't easily have it all.
So having it all to me is having the people around me healthy and happy.
And if they're not healthy and happy,
that we're making sure we take the steps and strides to do everything we can to get themas healthy as possible.
(20:04):
I'm proud of Break Life that the fact that my company gainfully employs my family.
So having it all is just people that I love being close to me, being able to touch themand see them and talk to them and hear their voices, see their smiles, understanding their
pain, understanding their heartaches and seeing what I can do to solve it.
And if I can't solve it, just be a shoulder to lean on.
(20:24):
If I can't be around people I love, I have nothing no matter how much money I have.
I thought that it was just working 24 seven.
And then when you kind of step back and then you're like, what is success?
Success is yes, maintaining those relationships, making sure that your team is happy, thatyour team is fulfilled, that they have what they need, make sure that your partners are
(20:45):
well, checking in on them, but also making sure that your family and your family unit isfine and that you're okay too.
it's creating that balance between that entire kind of.
form of life and taking time also for yourself.
When you meet someone for the first time in Spain, the first question you ask is, is yourname?
(21:05):
The second question you ask is, what do like to do?
And that's how you get to know someone.
Asking somebody what their job is is considered pretty rude most of the time.
And so it's not a question that you would ask sort of right when you meet someone.
Whereas in the States, when I'm back visiting family and friends, I get asked all thetime, what's your name?
What do you do?
And that's sort of how people define themselves.
(21:26):
And in Spain, you talk a lot more about your passions and your interests and your hobbies.
than you do necessarily about your job.
And so that concept of being able to have a work-life balance is built into society here,which makes it a lot easier to build it into our lives.
think being able to do a job that I like and live in a city that I really love and have alifestyle that gives me the opportunity to enjoy my work and have an interesting life and
(21:54):
feel good about going to work every day, that to me is having it all.
is what you're doing, making you fulfilled, making you happy.
That has to be first, because if not, you're miserable.
And if you're miserable, you can't put love and happiness and joy into the world if you'realready coming from a place of miserableness.
So that's number one.
Are you joyful?
Are you happy?
(22:15):
Are you loving what you do?
And then for the other one is, are you lighting up the people around you, your family,your customers, friends?
Because again, if you live in a place where you feel joy and you give joy,
Is there any greater success than that?
I absolutely do not think we can have it all.
(22:37):
And I think anybody believing that they can, that's when the pressure just combusts.
I've watched my parents also business owners as well.
And the pressure is too much, especially as a woman, you know, with children, I can'tspeak on anyone else's stories except for my own.
(22:57):
But yeah, I had to lose that have it all a very long time ago.
The idea of perfection and succeeding to me, I just had, I don't believe in those words.
And yeah, it's just, it's at the end of the day, a balancing act.
I think of my life always just as this seesaw.
You can be great at one thing, but while that part of your life is great, something elseis definitely suffering.
(23:23):
So yeah, I just think, you know, do your best at everything, but yeah, I just don't thinkyou can have it all at this time.
Which is okay.
I don't think anyone needs to have it all.
I think success to me is the happiness and health of everybody that you love around you.
It's not a financial aspect.
It's not a level of business that you need to strive for.
(23:45):
I just think if you have healthy, happy loved ones, then you're happy and that'ssuccessful to me.
What advice would you give someone who might be wanting to change directions in theircareer and might want to branch out and own their own business?
And what questions do you think they should be asking themselves when making that kind ofdrastic change in their life?
(24:09):
We kind of did everything when we started and established protocol to hire more people.
Now we have a management, we have a great reservation system.
We have an internal management system that we use and we have so many protocols that we'veinstated.
And if we could back earlier, I think we would have grown faster, right?
(24:30):
So higher grade people outsource.
Don't do it all on your own.
That's something I wish we would have done.
Don't expect anybody to believe in your dream.
You have to believe in it from the time you wake up to the time you wake up again.
Don't get upset for people for not believing in your dream.
Don't get angry.
Whatever your dream is, it's yours and yours alone.
(24:52):
And you have to live it.
You have to take the wins and the losses.
Whatever it is, once you believe in it, then you got to get up and put your cape on andyou got to go make it happen.
Because no one else is going to believe in what you believe in.
No one sees through your eyes.
No one sees what you see.
No one wants what you want.
So you gotta go get it.
And then at the end of the day, if it doesn't work out, then you're able to say, gave itall I had.
(25:14):
I that it's different because we lived in Spain for quite a while before starting tolaunch the business.
You know, I moved to Spain in my late 20s.
because I didn't know what else I wanted to do other than live in Spain.
And so I moved to Spain, but I worked in other things and I figured out how to live inSpain and figured out how to make a life here.
(25:40):
And so I think the question of is like, are you going to drop out business?
I don't know that I would recommend that to other people because it's a crazy thing to do.
And I think that it sounds really fun to just eat, and think that can feel reallyexciting.
the moment but
really hard to live in another country and find a path.
(26:04):
And so I don't think that that should ever be taken lightly.
And so I think for us, I, that was, we, we had that journey.
could give any advice to any person who's thinking about how to do what to do something.
The thing that one should do is do it, like believe in your, your powers and figure out.
(26:25):
kind of how to make a realistic decision for yourself, but we're so much more powerfulthan we think we are.
we're much fear of the unknown, which is healthy, you know, that's important, but we'remuch more powerful than we think we are.
You just kind of do whatever you got to do to make it work and don't be too hard onyourself.
Well, I've never had anyone get up and walk out of a meeting and most of my meetings werewith men because I brought a baby.
(26:51):
If anything, I think it was the opposite because most of them were fathers and they'dlike, I remember when mine was that age and gosh, I never thought I could have taken them
to work with me.
And, know, don't apologize for what you got to do to make your business work.
that is the first thing I learned to do whatever you have to do.
And if anyone judges you.
They're not somebody you want to do business with anyway.
(27:11):
Anybody would need to look at where they are in their life at the moment.
If it's the right time for them, whether they have a family of their own or if they're ina relationship.
If you were starting a new business that that becomes your priority.
I just think it comes down to timing, how much you want it.
(27:32):
And then you have to say failure isn't an option.
There's so many times that we could have just given it up and walked away.
but it's those times that you just dig in your heels and just keep moving forward.
face that storm and you get through it.
Yeah, that's the only way that the business is going to stay alive and thrive.
(27:54):
and do you have any exciting projects or any growth plans on the horizon that you'reexcited to share with us?
I'm just really proud of where I helped get Zoom to.
It's come from, I call it Del Patio Productions, which means patio productions.
We started, we took it together without any formal business plan.
(28:19):
And here we are today, one of the top tourism companies in Puerto Rico.
Amazing reviews, we're able to employ great humans, we're able to partner with greatrestaurants and bars.
farm and give them business, shed a spotlight also on them and on their businesses.
So I am in general just really proud of where we've
(28:40):
My goal is just to make sure that break life is not only a household name, but that we canchange the paradigm about the angry person, the angry black woman, the angry black man,
the angry man, the angry woman.
So eventually my goal is to research through data, through sitting down and sitting atevery table where I've never been welcomed before, but now I belong.
(29:01):
and to talk about destructive therapy, alternative therapy, and how it can change theworld.
And if you can't change the world at your house, come to Break Life, because we can changeit there.
Because our motto is, it ain't broke, come break it.
The next more guides and having more for us to be able to offer.
We would love to incorporate day trips and so we're that at some time later this year andmaybe continuing to expand what we offer.
(29:31):
Madrid sits in the middle of a really incredible area and we would love to be able tobring folks out to wineries out to.
olive oil makers and really not just taste the food but experience how it's made, which isso cool because people don't think that even though you're in this giant mega city of
Madrid, less than an hour away, people are making incredible wine, incredible olive oil,incredible cheeses.
(29:52):
And so thinking about ways to you to evolve the ways that we connect people and grow ourcapacity into our more great stuffs.
We've built a really beautiful name for ourselves in the industry.
Yeah.
We're not going anywhere and whether or not these location issues get fixed.
(30:12):
Cause you know, looking back, they were there back then knowing what I know now, nothingprobably would have changed, but at least I would have been prepared for the changes that
were about to come.
And where we are now, we changed our business structure a little bit.
changed the experiences, the people that we get.
Our customer base at the moment now is much different than where it was when we wereoutside of Surfers Paradise.
(30:39):
So we changed the length of the tours and we changed the model of the business slightly tofit in with the new client base.
So yeah, we've worked our way and yeah, we've found our spot.
If you're at the start of your entrepreneurial journey, you have no idea where yourbusiness is going to take you.
When we started 25 years ago, our goal was to start a dog sled tour company that wouldsustain our family and create a great lifestyle.
(31:04):
And we did that, but we could have never envisioned that we would write bestselling booksand speak on stages all over the world.
You know, our dogs were in a movie last year and my husband is not double and we can'ttalk about it yet.
But you know, all these just incredible things that we could have never ever dreamed ofhappening 25 years ago, just because we said yes to chasing a business that allowed us to
(31:26):
build a lifestyle around something we loved.
Thank you to all of our incredible guests for sharing their journeys, their challenges,and for their wonderful advice.
Their stories remind us of the resilience, passion, and innovation that women bring intothe tourism industry each and every day.
We hope you're feeling as inspired as we are here at Fair Harbor by these women.
(31:49):
Thank you so much for listening.
Make sure to like, subscribe, and be sure to check out our guest businesses while you'reat it.
Until next time, I wish you a very happy International Women's Day and I'll check you outon the next episode of Growth Powered by Fair Herbert.
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