Adventure Travel with Hayley Donigan - Brand Voice Strategist and Copywriter for travel brands - Adventure Travel Podcast - Big World Made Small

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_07 (01:05):
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of
the Big World Made Small podcastfor the Adventure Traveler.
So happy to have each and everyone of you back here today.
And I'm also super excited.
We've got a wonderful guesttoday.
We've got Haley Donnegan.
Haley is a brand voicestrategist and copywriter for
travel brands.
Haley, welcome to the show.
So happy to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
Thank you for having me.
I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_07 (01:27):
This is gonna be a lot of fun.
We we spoke a week or two ago,and I just I thought your your
perspective and just kind ofyour energy was amazing, and I
thought, hey, we need to comeback.
So here we are, and right beforeI pushed the button, we talked
about you're a brand voicestrategist, and sometimes people
that work in the branding worldare really sensitive to their
brand and what it is, and what Iwhen I asked you about your

(01:49):
title, you're like, yeah,whatever.

SPEAKER_05 (01:51):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:53):
I I love that.
So thank you so much for uh foryour openness.
Haley, we're gonna get into yourbackground, childhood traumas,
all kinds of stuff that causedyou to get from wherever you
were to where you are now.
But before we do that, I want togive our listeners an
opportunity to kind of connectwith what it is you do before we
start talking about why.
So, what does a brand voicestrategist and copywriter for

(02:15):
travel brands do?

SPEAKER_01 (02:17):
Well, it's funny because I feel like I change how
I write about what I do all thetime.
And it's that cliche of whenyou're a when you're a
copywriter, you struggle towrite for yourself.
It's really easy to do it forother people and other brands,
but for yourself, it's reallydifficult.
And I can really sympathize withthe companies that I work for,
especially ones that havefounders who are really close to

(02:37):
what they're doing, because itjust feels so personal and
difficult, difficult toarticulate what you do.
I tend to actually just callmyself a copywriter, but then I
think I'm selling myself shortbecause a lot of what I do is
really getting underneath thesurface of a brand and figuring
out how to position them in themarketplace against their
competitors and understandingwhat their audience is, how to

(03:01):
connect with their audiences inan emotional way.
And so a lot of strategy goesinto it.
And so that is why I added thebrand voice strategist.
And also because brand voice issomething that I really, really
love doing.
It's really fun to bring thecharacter of a brand to life.
So that's why I've put thatfirst, because that's what I I

(03:23):
love doing the most.

SPEAKER_07 (03:24):
You know, it's it's fascinating you say that.
I spoke with someone recentlythat I, as I recall, I was told
the your brand is what peoplesay about you when you're not
there.
I I don't I'm I don't know.
There's probably different waysto say that.
And when I heard you saysometimes it's hard to write
copy for myself, or you'resympathetic with business owners

(03:47):
and founders that you know,somebody on their team says, You
should write more, you shouldput yourself out there more, you
should do more blog posts.
And it's it's hard.
And uh so where I'm going withthis is it sounds like okay, for
you to come in and look atsomebody's brand and dig deep
with them and kind of get intoit, you've got that benefit of
not being so emotionally tied toit.

(04:09):
And you can probably look at abrand and say, look, here's my
take on what I see on yourwebsite or what I see, and help
me.
This is the story I've createdin my head about your brand.
Does that how does that alignwith how you feel about your
brand?
And then you see those thosegaps and they're like, no,
that's not what we're doing.
Okay, well, let's figure out howto share that.
And it's really, really hard todo that when you're sitting

(04:31):
inside your business.
It's the same thing with thepodcast, you know, when guests
come on the show.
Every guest I've had on the showhas had somebody on their team
said, You need to put yourselfout there more.
You should you should take yourcell phone when you're walking
around on a trip and take videosand commentaries and post them
on social media and like howterrif how terrifying is that.

SPEAKER_01 (04:51):
Yeah, yeah.
But you you nailed it because itis, it's I feel like when I
approach a project, I alwaysthink in terms of, I'm the
customer now.
So I'm getting under the skin ofwho is the customer and how can
I resonate with them.
And so I am actually kind ofdetached from the brand in that
sense because what a lot ofbrands tend to do is they want

(05:12):
to, they have certain thingsthat they want to tell the
customer.
And very often they lead withthis is this is what we do, this
is who we are, these are thethings that we want you to know.
But the customer often doesn'tactually care about those
things, or maybe that'ssecondary.
But really, what you're tryingto do is what is the emotional
benefit that's gonna resonate?
What and and how do youarticulate that?

(05:33):
And that is really what makes acopywriter special versus any, I
mean, anyone can write, anyonecan write about a business, but
that is what a copywriter bringsto the table.

SPEAKER_07 (05:43):
Yeah, it's it's so true.
And it it aligns with, I've beenworking on a project to build
out search capabilities, forexample, on the podcast website,
so people can come in and andsearch for different uh, not I
don't want to say episodes, butfor different guests, different
experts, and and connect withthem.
And I'm super excited about it.
And I spend hours and hours andhours and doing it and and I

(06:05):
recognize that I have no idea ifanybody else cares.

SPEAKER_05 (06:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (06:10):
You know, so I can say, well, you know, if you ask
me, well, what is special aboutyour website?
I can say, oh, well, I've gotthis AI assisted search feature
where people can go in andconnect with all these guests,
and you could, and you couldsay, okay, Jason, I'm I would
never use that.
I don't know if that'simportant.
Like I just, you know, but yeah,so it's it's always nice to have
a second set of eyeballs, ears.
Yeah.

(06:30):
So okay.

SPEAKER_01 (06:31):
But you know what?
I would also venture to guessthat you probably, I mean, you
speak to so many people, you areactually the expert in your
brand in that sense.
And so probably instinctuallyyou do know that that product is
something that resonates withthem, but it is how do you
articulate that to them, right?
So it's like you you have theknowledge of that audience, but

(06:53):
but then how do you communicateto them that this is a feature
that they should care about?

SPEAKER_07 (06:58):
You're you're absolutely right.
Because I can I love buildingfeatures, but communicating why
that's important and and howthat's useful.
I I find that when I get on acall with somebody or I'm having
a conversation with somebody, Ican explain it to them.
But you need to get them on thecall before you can explain it
to them.

SPEAKER_01 (07:16):
Exactly.
And can you do it in threewords?
You know, that's that's that'ssomething so real hard.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (07:22):
That's that's a big challenge because I've spent a
lot of time on websites and youknow, in this uh travel space.
And yeah, and I I'm guilty of itmyself is I know what I want to
convey, but it takes me 14paragraphs to do it.

SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
Yeah, I know.
Nobody needs 14 paragraphs.
But I always think, you know,people just this is the mindset
I take, actually.
The more time I spend makingsomething really well crafted,
it takes a lot of thought, butthat means less time that the
reader has to spend in figuringout what you're trying to say.
So it's almost like a commondecency thing of I want someone,

(07:58):
I want someone to have a reallygood experience when they land
on my website, which means thatthey get the point of what I'm
trying to convey.
They get the information thatthey want immediately.
And even better, they feelsomething and they feel excited
or inspired.
And so that takes a lot of timeand people don't realize that.
But if you just, you know, ifyou just spend 10 minutes
quickly writing something andgetting whatever you want to get
across, that's fine.

(08:19):
They might be able to figure itout, but they're they might get
bored of trying to figure it outand they might just leave and go
onto someone else's website.

SPEAKER_07 (08:26):
I love it.
Cause yeah, you just hit it onthe head.
It's I'm like, I've I'm doingsomething like an AI assisted
search engine, whatever.
And it's like, okay, here arethe 10 things that I think is
cool about this, and I want tocover all 10 things.
That's why I end up with maybe10 paragraphs.
And someone else is like, okay,but these two or three things

(08:47):
are cool enough.
You don't need all these otherthings, they're cool to you, but
they're cool to you because youfigured out how to do it and
you're excited that you figuredout how to do it, but nobody
cares that you figured out howto do it.
It either works for them, ithelps them hit their goal or
not.
So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (09:02):
And it's all it really does always come down to
understanding the audience andwhat they're looking for.
Because, for example, a highlytechnical audience might be
looking for that level ofdetail.
You can also try to follow thepyramid principle, which is that
basically you always put themost important information at
the top, and then you go intomore detail as you go along.
But there's all sorts ofdifferent formulas you can
follow.

(09:22):
So I use instinct.

SPEAKER_07 (09:24):
Because that's tough for somebody that thinks it's
all important, because you know,because I because I spent hours
doing it.
So and it and the reason I'msaying this, this is not about
Jason's website, this is aboutanybody that's listening that
has a business.
And we've got a lot of touroperators that are listening to
this right now.
And it's yeah, it's likefiguring out what is the most
important part.
I spend a lot of time onwebsites, as I mentioned, and

(09:46):
it's it's interesting becausesometimes people reach out to
me, you know, they want to maybecome on the show and I go look
at their website.
And the first thing I'm tryingto figure out is honestly, is
just what do they do?
Like, I like I go to theirwebsite and I've got to dig
around three pages before Istart to kind of figure out what
it is they're doing.
And even then, sometimes we geton an intro call and I'm still

(10:08):
not sure.
And I'm like, Can you, you know,in your own words, please tell
me what it is you're doing?
And then they will tell me whatthey do.
And I'm like, wow, you I I wishyou would have put that on your
website, like right on the hero.

SPEAKER_01 (10:19):
Like just be clear, yeah.
First and foremost.
And that's the thing, too, islike I think the first priority
is to be clear, and then you canget a little bit fancier and
more clever.
But but if you're being cleverand you're foregoing being
clear, there's no point in doingthat.
So yeah, it's very interestingto see.
I live in London, so to see thetube advertisements.
I like to kind of be a criticand go in and think, oh, that's

(10:42):
a good one.
That slapped me in the face.
Oh, that's not so good.
I wonder who wrote that.
You see a lot of AI generatedones as well, which is very
interesting.

SPEAKER_07 (10:49):
Well, that's a whole nother conversation.
Maybe uh, maybe we'll touch onit.
We might come back to that.
Yeah, it's do you do you findlike because one another thing
I've have seen is like somepeople either they are very
visual or their marketing team,somebody, somebody in their
space that advised them on theirwebsite, built their website,

(11:11):
really likes, really likesgraphic design, really likes uh
you know colors and maybe evenfonts and all that stuff.
And you can look at the website,wow, this is a really nice
website, but I don't know whatthey do.
Oh, yeah.
And then you've got otherwebsites that probably have
pretty decent copy, or you cankind of see what they do, but

(11:31):
they have no aestheticappreciation.

SPEAKER_01 (11:33):
Right.
I know, and this is why theworld of digital marketing is so
broad, as you know, it's likethere's so many elements that
come into it to make thatbalance.

SPEAKER_07 (11:44):
Okay.
I I wanted to ask you thisbecause I also heard you say
sometimes when you sit down towrite for yourself, it's it's
harder than writing for someoneelse.
I complete well, I completelyget that.
It's also much easier for me tohave conversations with guests
about their story.
What's that?

SPEAKER_05 (11:59):
Yeah, if I start to ask you.

SPEAKER_07 (12:01):
Yeah.
Where if if somebody said, Okay,Jason, you know, you're gonna
sit down and share your storyand what's important to you for
the next hour, I'd probably haveto, you know, write a script and
practice it and all this stuff,and it's just so much easier to
pull other people's stories out.
But where I'm going with that,as a copywriter or as a brand
voice strategist, do you everthink, I'm just like, do you

(12:24):
ever think that maybe you wantto partner with another
copywriter, just like to eitherhave them edit your stuff or
write your stuff?
Like, do you ever feel like, youknow what, this would just be
easier if I just hired acopywriter to help me, even
though you're a copywriter, ordoes ego get in the way, or what
do you does that happen?

SPEAKER_01 (12:41):
That has genuinely never crossed my mind, and
that's such a good idea.
That is such a brilliant idea,just to see what they would say.
You know, like what how wouldthey, what's, you know, how
would they look at it?
Because obviously you can takethings in many different angles.
I would hope that anothercopywriter would look at my work
and say, Yeah, you nailed it,only have tiny little notes here

(13:02):
and there, but it's allsubjective.
But yeah, it's a great idea.
I should do that.

SPEAKER_07 (13:06):
It it makes sense because I don't know a lot about
publishing and editing andwriting, but my understanding is
most of the amazing writers outthere have great editors.

SPEAKER_01 (13:16):
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (13:18):
Right?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (13:19):
So and we're all perfectionists, by the way.
Like I can, I don't think I'veever written anything ever where
I'm like, okay, that is donenow.
I'm never gonna improve that orlook at that again.
If I read something that I wrotefive years ago, I can guarantee
I'll have a million things thatI want to change about it.
But that's just the nature ofthe game.

SPEAKER_07 (13:35):
That's interesting.
I bet if I well, I don't bet,but I I'm uh postulating that if
I had you and another copywriterand I presented the challenge
of, okay, Haley, I want you, youknow, so-and-so is gonna write
the copy.
They're gonna interview youabout what's important, they're
gonna have a conversation withyou, and then they're gonna walk
away and write the copy, andthen you're gonna walk away and

(13:57):
write the copy.
I'm guessing you'd spend eighthours in a lot of anguish.
They'd come back in about anhour, and you would read your
final product and still feellike it's not quite right.
But maybe you'd read theirs andthink, wow, she nailed it or he
nailed it, right?

SPEAKER_01 (14:14):
So true.
And I think the thing as well isit's, you know, there's a
there's a skill set withcopywriting where you can follow
certain principles, and youknow, you got to do your
audience research and yourcompetitor research, and there's
different formulas that you canfollow, et cetera, et cetera.
But there is also a craft to itin the sense there's a lot of
creativity as well andpersonality that goes into it.

(14:36):
And so that I can find thatreally difficult actually
because it's quite personal whatyou think.
Okay, I think that this creativeelement is great, and I can back
that up.
I can I can explain why and howthat would resonate with the
target audience.
But at the end of the day, it ismy creative juices that have
created that.
And so it's scary when you putthat out into the world, or you

(14:57):
know, a client has to sign thatoff, or another copywriter looks
at it, and they might say, Oh,what have you done there?
Or and then and I don't know.
I I don't know if I'm the onlyone, but I I get very personally
attached to the things that Iwrite, going back to what we
were saying about writing foryourself and why that's so
difficult.

SPEAKER_07 (15:14):
Yeah.
All right, let's figure outwhat's behind all that.
Let's uh let's go back to yourchildhood.

SPEAKER_05 (15:20):
Okay.

SPEAKER_07 (15:21):
Here's what I want to figure out is I want our
listeners, and I also, ofcourse, want to hear is how did
you get from where you were towhere you are now?
You know, nobody just wakes upone day and they're doing, you
know, this this type of work inthe travel space unless
something came along the way.
So I don't know.
What do you should we start withthe angle on the writing side or

(15:45):
the the fascination with travel?
I don't know.
Let's let's just go back to whenyou were 12.
What did you want to be when youwere 12?
If I had a time machine, I wentback and I said, Haley, what do
you want to be when you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 (15:56):
You know, I don't know.
I think I had a lot of differentthings growing up.
I think I probably would havesaid pastry chef at some point,
artist, you know, postman.
I think I I had like I wasinterested in everything.
I don't think teacher, maybe Iwould have said.
I used to, so a big part of mypersonality is I love guinea
pigs.
And I had I used to teach myguinea pigs when I was little.

(16:19):
So I would I would have them siton the bed and I'd have my
little whiteboard and therewould be a whole, you know, this
is the agenda for today, andthis is your lunch break, and
etc.
etc.
So actually, I think I wouldhave probably said teacher,
guinea pig teacher.

SPEAKER_07 (16:31):
Were you an only child?

SPEAKER_01 (16:33):
No.
No, okay.
My whole family does like guineapigs.
So we're a little weird.

SPEAKER_00 (16:40):
Because I'm just imagining first on your show,
Jason.

SPEAKER_07 (16:43):
I'm just, yeah, I'm imagining poor little Haley, no
siblings, and uh sitting in herroom with her guinea pigs trying
to teach them Spanish orsomething or math.

SPEAKER_01 (16:53):
I was a very I'm an introvert and I was a very
independent child.
Like I've never had any problemspending time in my own company.
So maybe that's why I give anonly child vibe.

SPEAKER_07 (17:03):
All right, that's that's very cool.
Are you familiar with the MyersBriggs personality assessment?

SPEAKER_01 (17:07):
Yes.
Um, I think I've done it, but Ican't remember what my I won't
put you on the spot.

SPEAKER_07 (17:12):
I was just curious.

SPEAKER_01 (17:13):
But I I know I'm I'm definitely introverted.
I like my own company a lot, butI'm very friendly.
So maybe I'm an ambiver.
I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_07 (17:21):
Yeah, it sounds it sounds like it.
Okay, so did where did youwhere'd you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 (17:26):
I grew up in Orange County, California.

SPEAKER_07 (17:29):
What was that like growing up in Orange County,
California?

SPEAKER_01 (17:33):
It was pretty idyllic.
It's always sunny.
The seasons don't really changemuch, but it's an interesting
place to grow up in the sensethat you don't know what you
don't know.
So I didn't really understandthat that was unusual to live
somewhere that was always sunny.
That was just, you know,Christmas, it's sunny, you know.
It's just that's just that wasnormal to me.

(17:54):
Uh we, you know, grew up goingin in the pool, going to the
beach, being outside, uh, goingto the park.
So I'm really lucky.
And it was a Orange County isvery suburban.
And so uh it's a very safe placeto live.
And I feel like I got a lot ofopportunities to be a kid.
You know, like I think kids thatgrow up in big cities maybe have
to grow up a little bit quicker,but I felt like I really got to

(18:17):
be a kid.
So I feel really grateful forthat.

SPEAKER_07 (18:20):
Okay.
And because yeah, I I'm happythat you mentioned that because
a lot of our listeners are fromaround the world and some of us
have ideas of California.
So even even I, I like I'mfamiliar with California.
But when you say Orange County,California, I'm I think a lot of
people are like, oh, that's justthat's like LA, right?
That's like Yeah.
Yeah, that's uh hustle bustle,kind of crazy.

(18:42):
Um, but it's it sounds likeyours, it was more of a suburb
type of uh childhood, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 (18:47):
Yes, uh it's really interesting what people's
perceptions are of Orange Countybecause especially because it's
uh it's been on TV, so peopleare familiar with the OC.
And I come from a city calledRancho Santa Margarita, which a
lot of people have not heard of.
And the reason probably isbecause it's only 25 years old.
It just celebrated its 25thbirthday.

(19:09):
So it that's something maybe wecan talk about during our
conversation because I'm I'msure that's part of the reason
that I'm so fascinated withtraveling, because I go places
that are that have all thishistory and culture and
heritage.
And my city was literally built25 years ago.
It's it's it's like it'sbeautiful, but it's like living

(19:30):
in kind of like living inDisneyland or something.
It's very manicured.

SPEAKER_07 (19:34):
Okay.
All right.
No, no old buildings, no Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (19:39):
Well, if by nineties you mean old, because people do
now think that that's kind ofvintage.
So yeah, kind of.

SPEAKER_07 (19:45):
Well, that's true.
And and for our listeners, wheredo you live now?

SPEAKER_01 (19:50):
I live in London, England now.
Yeah.
Yeah, very different.

SPEAKER_07 (19:53):
That's a change.

SPEAKER_01 (19:55):
Yeah, it's a big change.

SPEAKER_07 (19:56):
In in so many ways, because I heard you say that you
grew up kind of thinking it wassunny everywhere every day.

SPEAKER_01 (20:01):
And oh yeah, and and this is we were talking about
this before the call.
It'll be sunny here one minute,then it's pouring with rain.
And so we were at talking aboutthe lighting of this video
because it's like, should I havethe blinds up or down?
We just don't know what's gonnabe happening here.

SPEAKER_07 (20:15):
It's bright out there outside right now, but in
half an hour it could be, yeah,could be raining.
We're gonna we're definitelygonna figure out how you made
that big transition because itis a big transition.
But let's do you remembersubjects in school that were
really like was writing an earlyon thing?
Did did tell us kind of how yougot into that?

SPEAKER_01 (20:35):
Okay, well, I guess I can start by saying that my
mother is an English professor.
So I from an early age was readto, and both of my parents read
a lot.
And so I think reading wasalways a huge part of my life.
And I I mean, it could begenetics, it could be, or it
could be that, but I I alwaysfound English very, very easy in

(20:58):
school.
It was like I didn't need to putany effort in versus math.
Oh my goodness, that was adifferent story.
So I think, you know, we did wedid the standardized tests in
school, and English was alwayslike 99th percentile, whatever,
you know, and not that it meansanything, but it was that was,
and then math would be like, oh,you're the 70th percentile or
whatever, and that was me likeagonizing over every answer.

(21:21):
Um I enjoyed it because I thinkI was just naturally good at it
and it didn't take too muchextra effort.
And then I would say I've alwaysI've always also been interested
in I guess the arts or morecreative subjects or the
humanities.
And so I think that's why I wasdrawn more to writing as a
career.

(21:41):
But I do also kind of like theelement of strategy and logic
that comes with being amarketing person.
So there it it's not like I'm afull-blown creative.
I I have a All right.

SPEAKER_07 (21:53):
Did you do sports in school?

SPEAKER_01 (21:55):
No, no, no, no, no, no.
That was I was the PE person whowas just there to get it over
with.
Um, yeah, I did do a little bitof dance as a child.
I did some dance, but thatthat's the extent of my creative
side.

SPEAKER_07 (22:08):
That's the yeah, dance is creative, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (22:11):
Nothing competitive.
I don't want to be competing.

SPEAKER_07 (22:13):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (22:14):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (22:15):
Inter interesting.
Did you what did you and afteryou finished high school, what
did you do?

SPEAKER_01 (22:21):
So I went to university in England.
So that is how I ended up overhere.
Yeah.
So I decided that well, I guessto step back, I decided that I
wanted to study communications.

SPEAKER_07 (22:33):
That was the actually the question I wanted
to get at is what what did youstudy?

SPEAKER_01 (22:37):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (22:37):
And when do you remember thinking, do you
remember a point when you'relike, yep, this is what I'm
gonna do?
I want to do communications.

SPEAKER_01 (22:44):
It's a good question.
I I was very academic in highschool.
I got really competitive.
Well, not competitive, Iwouldn't say competitive, but I
got very uh interested in doingwell in high school.
Okay.
Because I was really interestedin I wouldn't say it was so much
what college I went to in thesense of like the uh how good of
a college it was.
But I I wanted to be able to gowhere I wanted to go.

(23:07):
I wanted to have the option togo elsewhere.
And so I was very motivated togive myself as many options as I
could.
And so I leaned into all thesubjects just to get, you know,
the degree that would allow meto do that.
And so my high school offered aninternational baccalaureate
degree, which a lot of highschools do not offer.

(23:29):
I don't know if you've heard ofit, but it's basically it's a
high school diploma that you canuse internationally, which
basically means that you can useyour high school credits to
apply to universities abroad.

SPEAKER_06 (23:41):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (23:42):
And it's kind of an unusual thing to do.
I don't I don't actually knowhow many people do it, but I had
a really big graduating class,like thousands of high schoolers
graduating at the same time, butonly a very, very small fraction
of us actually got that specificdegree.
And that allowed me to apply foruniversities abroad, which

(24:03):
weirdly I was the only one frommy high school of my year that
did that.
So that was why I did it.

SPEAKER_07 (24:09):
I want to touch on that because I heard you say a
couple things.
One thing I heard you say was Iwanted to go where I could do
what I wanted to do.
And it sounded But you weretalking about communications.
So it sounded like and I'm justyou helped me figure this out
because I heard you say I wantto do communications.
I wanted to do well in school sothat I could go where I wanted

(24:31):
to go.
And then you kind of made it yousaid something about you it
sounded like I want to get thefuck out of here.

SPEAKER_01 (24:53):
And so I I use academia as a catalyst for being
able to do that, if that makessense.

SPEAKER_07 (24:59):
It it does make sense.
And that's what I was trying tofigure out.
Was this a, wow, I can goanywhere in the world if I do
well in school, I can gosomewhere else.
And but I want to ask when yousaid you didn't think maybe
Orange County was the right, Idon't know, fit.
I don't want to put words inyour mouth, but why?
Help me understand what maybewas behind your desire to go.

SPEAKER_01 (25:20):
There are so many different things that I could
say.
I would say that a lot of peoplein Orange County tend to stay in
Orange County or they don'tleave very often.
It's not, you know, you as youknow, in in the US, you're not
close to that many other uhcountries.
And I felt like I wanted to livesomewhere that was more diverse

(25:42):
and and gave me moreopportunities to experience
different cultures.

SPEAKER_06 (25:47):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (25:48):
And that living in Europe has allowed me to do that
very easily, much more, muchmore easily.

SPEAKER_07 (25:54):
I get that completely.
And I appreciate you workingthrough that with me because if
you said I grew up in DesMoines, Iowa, and I did well in
school because I wanted theopportunity to go somewhere
else, I probably wouldn't haveeven asked that question.
And and that's not knocking DesMoines.
I grew up in northern Wyoming.
I grew up in a very small townin northern Wyoming.

(26:15):
Trust me, there were there werea lot of people that stayed, but
there were a lot more peoplethat probably graduation, you
know, high school came andthey're like, I want to go.
I want, you know, I want to gowhere there's more stuff
happening.
And then maybe later they mightmove back because they miss the
mountains and the nature and allthat stuff.
But uh so I wanted to ask thatabout Orange County because I
think, wow, there's there's allkinds of stuff there.
I kind of see why people mightstick around.

(26:36):
I it's not probably the rightfit for me.
So where I'm going with this isI I actually heard the
international part was prettyimportant.

SPEAKER_01 (26:45):
Yeah, I think initially I thought, oh, I'll go
to the East Coast because thatfeels like a completely
different international.
You know, it's a different, youknow, the two coasts in the US
are so different from eachother.
So that was my initial.
Well, I think I applied touniversities in uh Massachusetts
where I have some family.
New Orleans, I rememberthinking, oh, that'll be so
different.
You know, and it is, it's acompletely different culture.

(27:06):
So I I kind of, you know,Pennsylvania, I think I applied.
And then I got the ideabasically because my mom is
British and I have dualcitizenship.
And so that was kind of a littlebit of a huh, I wonder what I
could do with that.
And so that's what triggered thedecision.
Maybe I should look in England.
And at the time, England was inthe EU.

(27:27):
So being in having a Britishpassport basically meant having
a European passport, which Imean caching.
So that's kind of how thathappened.

SPEAKER_07 (27:35):
Uh, that makes sense.
I'm happy.
No, that makes well that's whywe have this conversation.
We pull these things out.
All right, so now we need toback up a little bit.
Yes.
And go into because if your momwas British and she showed up in
California, and I I think we I'dlike to just dig a little bit
more into your family and howthat might have had an

(27:56):
influence, because obviously itit did.
So, what can you share with usabout kind of how your parents
came together and what influencethat might have had on you?

SPEAKER_01 (28:04):
I honestly say that's probably one of the most
fundamental things that hastriggered where I am today
because And we almost missed it.

SPEAKER_07 (28:12):
We almost missed it.
Oh my goodness.
All right.

SPEAKER_01 (28:14):
I should, I really should have gone.
I, you know, when you asked meabout when I was 12, I should
have said, what about before Iwas born?
Because that might have beenmore relevant.

SPEAKER_07 (28:22):
I was I was looking for a clue and then finally we
found it.
So now we can go back to wherewe should have started.
So yeah, tell us more aboutthat.

SPEAKER_01 (28:29):
My mom was she taught English as a second
language.
And so she grew up in England inYorkshire, and she, when she was
in her 20s, moved to Morocco toteach English as a second
language and absolutely lovedit.
Meanwhile, my father, who's fromuh Massachusetts, w, you know,
also really wanted to travel,but his avenue for traveling was

(28:52):
going into the military.
So my dad was in the military,he was a Marine, and he took on
a program, an Arabic-speakingprogram, where he was required
to live in Morocco to do thatprogram.
And that's how they met.
And they got married in England,and then they ended up moving
back to the US.
And then my older siblings werelucky because they got to travel

(29:12):
around and you know, they l mysister was born in Hawaii, and
you know, they lived in Moroccofor a bit, et cetera, et cetera.
I was number three, and by thetime I came around, I was born
in North Carolina, and thenCause you're because your father
was still in the military.
Say again.

SPEAKER_07 (29:28):
Yeah, and your father was still in the
military, that's why the movingaround Hawaii Correct.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (29:32):
So they basically went around where he was
stationed.
Um but my earliest memories areof being in Orange County.
So by the time I was growing up,that was where my family had
settled.
But yeah, that was kind of theuh the air that I breathed
growing up was just this love ofbeing abroad.
And it's funny because we didn'treally do family vacations

(29:54):
particularly.
Like it wasn't like, oh, we'regonna go spend a week in Kaabo
or anything like that.
But we did every few years goback to England and and visit
family.
And my parents eventuallyseparated, and my dad actually
was stationed in Japan.
So when I was 10, we went to orI went to Japan for a month and
stayed with him.
And so I guess my travel isliving in places or at least

(30:20):
trying to experience places asif you live in them, not
necessarily going and being on abeach somewhere.

SPEAKER_07 (30:25):
So we just went from a young woman that grew up in
the suburbs of Los Angeles andOrange County, living the
idyllic life in Cal inCalifornia, moving to the UK,
and now there's so much morecontext to this.

SPEAKER_05 (30:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've owned family of travelers.

SPEAKER_07 (30:44):
And so let's chat about so your siblings were were
older, you mentioned that.
How much like were they oldenough that they remembered uh
some of their travels, likeliving in Morocco and these
other places?

SPEAKER_01 (30:59):
They do.
I mean, they were really little,but they remember snippets.
So I think, I mean, they werekind of lucky because I believe
when they were in Morocco, theywould have been maybe I don't
know, I think my brother was ababy, but my sister would have
been maybe three or four yearsold, something like that.
But she was in, you know,preschool and stuff, picking up
the language, you know, Frenchand Arabic, and you know,
interacting, and they it it'sjust I think a really

(31:23):
interesting way to immerse yourchild.
But the funny thing is, mysister is actually out of all of
us, she's the homebody.
She really likes to be home.
She lives in California.
Um, and me and my brother arethe ones that that really love
traveling and living livingabroad.

SPEAKER_07 (31:37):
Did they both, when you were younger, do you
remember them saying thingslike, I'm from Morocco, or I was
born in Remock or Morocco?
You know, because sometimes kidslike my son, he was born in
Vermont.
We lived in Vermont until he waseight, and he's been living in
in Arizona for 10, 11 years, andhe's still very proud to tell
people I'm from Vermont.

SPEAKER_05 (31:59):
I love that.

SPEAKER_07 (32:01):
You know, it's it's part of his identity.
He was there a little bit longerthan it sounds like your
siblings were, but I was justcurious, did you did did your
siblings like, well, I'm specialbecause I was born in Morocco
and you were just born here inCalifornia?
Or I just was there any jealousyaround that?

SPEAKER_01 (32:16):
It's a good question.
I don't remember them doingthat.
I think that they remember alittle bit more of being on the
East Coast.
So maybe like Virginia and NorthCarolina a little bit more, but
I am jealous.
I am I have to say, I'm a littlebit bitter that they got to
have, even though they don'treally remember much of it.

SPEAKER_07 (32:32):
But I heard you, I heard you say they were lucky.

SPEAKER_01 (32:35):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (32:36):
I did hear you say that earlier.

SPEAKER_01 (32:37):
And and what about parents to do something for me?
I would be like, just couldn'tyou have stayed there and then I
could have been trilingual andyou know, it would have been
great.

SPEAKER_07 (32:47):
That makes sense.
But so you but you went to Japanat 10.

SPEAKER_01 (32:52):
Yes.

SPEAKER_07 (32:52):
Right?
To spend time with your dad.
What was that like?
Had you had you well, I I guessthe first question is, had you
been out of the country already?
Because you mentioned that youused to go to England every once
in a while.

SPEAKER_05 (33:03):
Yep.

SPEAKER_07 (33:03):
But I was was this trip to Japan your first trip
out of the country?
And Japan's quite a bitdifferent than the UK, so I just
I I'm curious about that.

SPEAKER_01 (33:12):
It was my first trip to Asia, and it is to this day
still my only trip to Asia.

SPEAKER_06 (33:17):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (33:18):
And I would like to change that because when I was
10 and I went to Japan, Iremember getting culture shock
really badly.
And I think when you're 10, youdon't really know how to process
those feelings in the same way.

SPEAKER_04 (33:30):
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 (33:31):
Um so I remember thinking, I really didn't like
the food.
I and I was I was a picky eater,I'm not anymore.
I really didn't like the food.
And it was just, you know,overwhelming to not be able to
speak the language.
And yeah, there are a lot ofthings that now I think about
oh, if I went as an adult, Iwould absolutely love every
single piece of this.

SPEAKER_07 (33:50):
Do you remember having conversations have you
had conversations about thatwith your dad?
Do you remember there beingtension or conflict between the
two of you?
And the reason I'm asking isbecause I took my son to Asia.
He was probably 15.
We spent a couple months inMalaysia, Thailand, and a short

(34:10):
stay in Japan.
And honestly, it was I think itwas kind of the same thing.
It was like he lost interest inthe food pretty quickly.
It was I remember we had a bigfight.
We were on Penang Island inMalaysia, and he just wanted to
go to McDonald's.
And I'm like, no, this is likethe the food capital of the
world.
Like, this is um like there's somany amazing choices.

(34:32):
And he's just, I just want to goto McDonald's.
And it was like this big fightthat that we had.
And yeah, yeah.
So I'm curious, did was your dadfrustrated with that?
Do you remember a tensionbetween the two of you?

SPEAKER_01 (34:43):
I do remember the first thing we ate when we
arrived was we went to asizzler, which I think is
hilarious.
I don't know why there was asizzler in Tokyo, and I'm not
sure if it there still is, butanyway, that's like, and I
remember being like, okay, thisis fine.
I can I mean the menu's still alittle weird, but I can deal
with this.

SPEAKER_04 (34:59):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (35:00):
But then there were other times where it was eating
things, you know.
I ate horse when I was there.
I'm a vegetarian now, but at thetime, so there's a lot of, I
feel like very immersiveexperiences that I was maybe not
fully prepared for, but I'm sograteful that I had that
experience.
I mean, how amazing.
And to be there for a month.
Um, I I also had, I always jokewith my family about this now

(35:22):
because my dad had us climbMount.
It was me and my brother thatwent, and he had us climb Mount
Fuji.
And we had no prior training orexperience to be doing that.

SPEAKER_07 (35:32):
You came from California, sea levels.

SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
Yeah, just you know, we just one day it was we're
gonna climb this mountain today.
And uh I am pretty sure he wouldprobably if you asked him, he
would probably say that was notfun for him because he was like
basically dragging us up thatmountain, like, come on.
But I would argue that, youknow, it was never meant to be.
And funny enough, when we got toso there's these stations as you

(35:55):
go up the mountain, and we gotto the second to last station
before we reached the top.
And I remember him saying, Okay,you've got a choice now.
We're almost there.
You can either wait here andI'll go up to the top, or you
can just come up with me.
It's one more stop and we'rethere.
And I said, You you go all theway through.

(36:15):
So I never made it to the verytippy top of Mount Fuji.

SPEAKER_06 (36:18):
Okay, do you do you regret that?

SPEAKER_01 (36:20):
Don't because I feel like everyone has different
things that they care about.
And for me, climbing to the topof a mountain is just not
something that I care about.
And so, you know, there's otherthings I, for example, really
miss you.
There's a very big guinea pigculture and capibera culture in
Japan, and those would be thekinds of things that I would
really like to go see.
So I'm very big on finding thethings that you're interested in

(36:43):
and doing those things, notnecessarily doing the things
that you should do.
You know, I should climb MountFuji.

SPEAKER_07 (36:50):
I respect that.
Yeah, I get that.
Do you remember what you didwhile he was trekking to the
top?
Did you have a book in yourbackpack that you were reading,
or what were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 (36:59):
I just sat there, as they would say in England, as my
mom would say, I think I justsat there with a face like a
slapped ass.
I think I just I just wasmiserable and wasn't being very
good company to anybody.
So yeah, I I I I wasn't therealone.
I was there with my stepsisterand my stepmom.
And so they sat with me and thenmy brother and my dad went to
the top.

SPEAKER_07 (37:18):
Your brother went.
Did your brother give you a hardtime?
Yeah, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 (37:22):
No, you know what?
I have he's a very good brother.
So he would, he was always thebrother that if I, you know, if
a if a plate of food was put infront of me and I really didn't
want to eat it, but I knew I hadto eat it, he would he would
sneakily eat it for me so that Iwouldn't have to.

SPEAKER_07 (37:38):
Have you realized since then that maybe he had an
ulterior motive?
Maybe he was happy to eat yourfood, but but wanted you to
think he was doing you a favor.
Yeah, I've done that.

SPEAKER_00 (37:51):
I hope so.
Because otherwise it's reallysad because I feel like he was
always just trying to kind ofprotect me from things.

SPEAKER_07 (37:57):
I can't tell you how many times I've eaten somebody
else's plate of food and said,Oh, okay, I'll help you.
And then I was like, very, veryhappy.
Yeah, yeah, leave it to me.
I'm a nice guy like that.
So all right.
That's uh that's that's prettycool.
When you when you got back, soyou were 10.
Okay.
Around 10 is kind of when, in myexperience, you'd come back to

(38:18):
school at the end of the summer.
This was over summer break, Iassume.

SPEAKER_01 (38:22):
I think it was, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (38:23):
Yep.
So you come back to school aftersummer break, and there's a lot
of like, well, what did you dothis summer?
Well, what did you do thissummer?
The teacher might even make youshare with the class at that age
what you did this summer.
Do you remember any of that?
Was there any conversation?
Do you remember any reactionsfrom other people?

SPEAKER_01 (38:40):
I do remember feeling a little bit different
because I knew, you know, I hadmy mom was an immigrant, and
then my dad became an immigrantwhen he moved to Japan.
And I was kind of aware that myfamily's situation was a little
bit different from, and I again,maybe this is why I feel
slightly out of place in OrangeCounty, in the sense that I
think other people maybe werejust going on like a quote

(39:03):
unquote normal summer vacation,and I was spending a month in
Japan on a marine base and then,you know, taking trips to go
climb Mount Fuji.
So yeah, I think I was aware,and and again, when we went to
um England too, we weren't goingto London and going to up the
London Eye and, you know, seeingBig Ben.
We were driving up to this smallvillage in Yorkshire that no

(39:23):
one's ever heard of.
And and you know, it it's alittle bit of a different
experience.
So I think I was conscious ofthat.

SPEAKER_07 (39:29):
That's true.
You'd already had been exposedto that.
Do you were you do you rememberwere you excited before the trip
to Japan?
Did you think, wow, this isreally cool?
And maybe it's just I want tosee dad.
I get that too.
But I'm curious, like, were youexcited to go?
And then afterwards when you gotback, you know, was because you
said there was some cultureshock.

(39:50):
You said there was some stuffyou didn't enjoy so much.
So I'm just kind of curious.

SPEAKER_01 (39:54):
I was excited, but I also I remember keep in mind
this was the day, you know,these were the days before kids
had like iPads and blah, blah,blah.
So I remember dreading thoselong flights to England.
Um, I don't know how my motherdid it with three young kids
when she would take us.
But I, yeah, I remember kind ofdreading the flight.

(40:14):
And this was also before, youknow, flights, we didn't have
our own little TVs or anything.
So I I can't remember what whatwe did.
I think we must have read or didactivities or whatever you do.

SPEAKER_07 (40:26):
What was was it just you and your brother on the
flight?
Because you you said, yeah, itwas just you and your brother.
Just us two.

SPEAKER_01 (40:33):
Yeah.
So again, he kind of had to bethe big brother there and just
kind of take the lead with that.
He's only he's three years olderthan me, but yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_07 (40:40):
Yeah, my brother and I went from Syracuse, New York
to Sydney, Australia when when Iwas 12.
It was just the two of us onthat unaccompanied minor thing.
So I can relax.
Yes, yes, yeah, that's exactlyreally, really boring.
Because yeah, there were notelevisions.
I think they used to have thoselike earphones.
This was before your time, but Ithey used to have the earphones

(41:00):
that were like you could plugthem into the seat, but it was
like an air cushion thing.
It wasn't even wired, it wouldjust so you could hear music,
maybe.
Okay, but yeah, that was thatwas yeah, okay.
Did you and did you and yourbrother get along on the way?
You said he was older, so he wasa little bit more responsible.

SPEAKER_01 (41:17):
I think we were fine, but it must have been a
burden for him because he wasthe one that kind of had to take
charge, I think, and and be thethe responsible one as the older
brother.
And I was just kind of goingalong with it.
So I'm a very laid back person,and that could be why, because
I'm just like, okay, I guess I'mgoing to Japan for a month.
I don't think I really thoughttoo much about it.
And to be honest, I'm still alittle bit like that when it

(41:39):
comes to traveling, or I'm verygo with the flow, like, oh, I
know someone in Rome.
I'll just, I'll just go see themand what do they want to do?
I'll just do what they want todo.
I'm very like, you guys take thelead and I will follow.
So I don't really, I'm not superfixated on logistics or anything
like that.

SPEAKER_07 (41:57):
What's that that I love that about you, the just
kind of the flexibility.
Even the first time we the firsttime we spoke, you're like,
yeah, spontaneous, great.
Because I told you, I said,there's there's no script.
I don't have a list of questionsfor you.
You're like, okay, cool, let'sgo.

SPEAKER_01 (42:10):
Even better.

SPEAKER_07 (42:11):
When so now we go back to when you graduated from
high school and you got acceptedto go to school over in the UK.
Because that was a question Iwould normally ask is, well,
what did your parents think ofthat?
But your dad was travelingaround you.
I don't know if he was still inJapan or where he was, but your
mom had immigrated, you know.
So obviously, so but I'm stillgonna ask you, what was that

(42:34):
like leaving California to go tothe UK?

SPEAKER_01 (42:38):
So I I can't remember if my dad was back at
that point, but he did make hisway back to California.
So they're both in Californianow, and my stepmom is in
California.
They were really excited.
I think they were they justunderstood why I wanted to do
it.
And I feel so grateful because Ithink I'm really lucky to have
parents that were just like, yougo, just go.
But I guess the other side tothat is they're also like, you

(43:00):
figure it out.
Like if that's what you want todo, great, but we're not gonna
take you.
So that was the first time I'dgotten on a flight on my own,
and it was okay, you're going,you're flying to England, and
good luck.
Like, see you later.
And in a way, I think it wasgood in the sense that there was
no option of like, you know,mom, I want to come home now.
I've I've made a big mistake.
It was like, no, you'vecommitted to this now.

(43:22):
You're going, you're you're inthe UK, and and that's that.
So I'm grateful for that styleof parenting because I think it
I I just had to make it work.
So, and I did.

SPEAKER_07 (43:31):
So three, let's say I don't want to put it.
Well, I'm I'll just ask you, wasthere a point after you got
there that you did regret yourdecision?
Did you go through thehomesickness thing?
I think most people do.
I've been through it.
I've been traveling for a whilenow and I've been through it.

SPEAKER_01 (43:45):
Yes.
So I don't remember this veryclearly, but my mom reminds me
of this.
I think the first week that Iarrived, I wasn't, so I arrived
in, you know, you go intostudent accommodation, but I,
because I was an internationalstudent, they advise that you
come a week earlier thaneverybody else.
So I arrived and I wasn't put inmy permanent residence.
I was put in some randomresidence.

(44:06):
I don't know why.
Um, so I was staying in thisempty dorm building.
It was like no one else.
I think there might have beenone other person in like a
different part of the buildingor whatever.
So I'm just, you know, I'm 18years old.
I've never lived abroad, andsuddenly I'm alone in this, in
this, and it was kind of acreepy, it was almost like
imagine like being in Hogwartsor something.
That was like what the vibe wasin this particular student

(44:28):
accommodation.
So I remember, well, my momremembers me calling her.
And again, this was before, youknow, we didn't have smartphones
and stuff, but somehow I think II managed to connect my laptop
into a landline or whatever andand found a way to call her.
And she says that I was like,What am I doing here?
This is really weird and scary.
But as soon as I moved into thepermanent residences, that was

(44:48):
when all of the students camein, and then it was fine.

SPEAKER_07 (44:52):
Why do you like in hindsight?
If you look back, have you everfigured out why they suggested
you come a week early, or isthat still a mystery?

SPEAKER_01 (44:59):
Because it sounds like I think that they have some
kind of I think they have likeum For international students.
I don't remember, but I thinkthat they wanted you to like,
you know, go set up a bankaccount and like you you had to
kind of do all those littlethings that international
students have to do.
So I think that was why, just togive you a little bit more time
to acclimatize, but I'm not surewhy they put me in an empty

(45:22):
building.
I don't know why they couldn'tput them all together.
I've never figured that out.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (45:26):
That's the part I'm wondering.
If you took all of theinternational students, they all
show up a week early and theyall get to know each other and
they have, you know, dinnertogether and and maybe go to the
bank together, then it would bekind of that would be a softer
landing, I guess is what I wouldsay.
But yeah, but being alone, likeright off the bat, that's not a
that's never a good way to startsomething, in my opinion.

(45:47):
But yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 (45:48):
Once I once I was kind of everyone moved in, I was
absolutely fine.
I loved it.
I was like flying it.
I I thought it was amazing.
And and to this day, you know,I've lived I've lived abroad for
16 years now.
I don't have moments ofhomesickness, but I do find that
saying goodbye when I travelback and forth, when I say

(46:08):
goodbye, that gets harder everysingle time.
I'm not sure why, but it's justthat it's just it's really
difficult.
And I do sometimes kick myselfin the sense that I've set, I I
feel like I've made my life moredifficult.
Sometimes I think, why couldn'tyou have just stayed in
California?
You'd have been near yourfamily.
Everything would have been somuch easier, but I've kind of
set myself up in this immigrantlife that is, you know, it's not

(46:31):
easy.
It's not an easy thing to do,but it has obviously its appeal.

SPEAKER_07 (46:36):
Let's let's discuss that.
Some of the things are obviousbecause you mentioned, well, you
know, family is a long waysaway.
That's an obvious one.
But there's some other thingsthat are maybe not so obvious.
So I so I've been traveling forfour and a half years, uh, full
time.
And oftentimes people are like,oh my gosh, that's amazing.
That's so cool.
That must be wonderful.
And and I'm not saying it's not,but there's also some things

(46:59):
that surprised me when I starteddoing it.
And there there are the otherside.
One is just being physically,you know, long distance from
family, but I'd love to dig intosome of your other kind of
moments that you're that youstop and have those like, what
am I doing here?
What what you know so whatshould people that have never
experienced what you're doing orwhat I'm doing, what would you

(47:22):
like them to understand aboutthe reality of being an expat
anywhere?

SPEAKER_01 (47:28):
Well, first and foremost, I would love to talk
to you more about being adigital nomad because I think
that would be so difficult.
And I'll explain why.
Because I feel like at least meas an immigrant in England, I've
been able to kind of settle andcarve out a second home, if that
makes sense.
So I do still have that feelingof rootedness, even though I did

(47:50):
also live in Spain for a bit.
So, you know, it it has changed,but I have this sense of having
two homes.
And so I think that has helpedme feel secure.
But there is this constantfeeling of being kind of pulled
in two different directions,which is really difficult.
And you never feel like youfully belong in one place.

(48:11):
So I never feel like I'm I fullybelong here or back at home
because I'm a different personnow.
I mean, I'd I'd love to know ifyou think I ever sound British
when I speak, actually, becausesometimes people pick up a
little twang of of the English.
But when I'm home, I sound very,very, very American.
So it's it's things like thatthat I guess I've become a
hybrid and it's a in it's aninteresting balance of you know,

(48:33):
where do I belong?

SPEAKER_07 (48:35):
Let me ask you a hypothetical question, because I
don't know how you'd know theanswer to this question, but I'm
curious what you would think ifyou had gone to school in
Pennsylvania and decided, wow, Ireally like Pennsylvania, and
you decided to stay inPennsylvania.
Do you how would you come howwould you guess how you like
would you because you justdescribed, I feel like I'm kind

(48:55):
of in between.
I'm I don't necessarily belonghere, I don't necessarily belong
there.
There's this in-between thing,and I'm wondering if you'd just
moved to Pennsylvania, if youwould have felt kind of the
same, because it's still faraway.
Yeah, you know, you're still notgonna go there for the weekend,
but culturally it can it'sdifferent.
There's still a differencebetween culturally and it's

(49:16):
still a five-hour flight.

SPEAKER_01 (49:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (49:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (49:18):
I think that that's right.
I think I would still feel Ithink no matter what, I was
going to do this to myself.
I think it was just somethingthat I had that I was gonna go
somewhere else and live in adifferent place.
And the difference I would sayis that because I've lived in a
different country since the ageof 18, I would feel really weird

(49:39):
moving back to the US as anadult.
Because I've never actually beenan adult living permanently in
the US.
And I feel like I wouldn'treally I it would be like being
an electricity.
Yeah, I would have to figure outso I mean, how the heck does
healthcare work in the US?
Oh my goodness.
So these are the kinds of thingsthat it's strange to say this,
but it's like I would feel likea foreigner in my own country.

(50:02):
And so and and sometimes now I,you know, when I speak to other
Americans, they they makereferences about certain things.
And I'm like, I have no ideawhat you're talking about.
So it's this strange thing whereit's like, I'm not fully
British, I'm not fully American,I'm just I'm just swimming in
both waters.

SPEAKER_07 (50:18):
I get that, and I suspect that that's if somebody
listening to this has not hadthat experience, it's maybe kind
of hard to imagine, but Icompletely get it.
And I've you've been outside theUS, living outside the US a lot
longer than I have, and I'mstill I'm already like that,
four and a half years, and uhwhen I go home to visit, I just
feel like kind of uncomfortablein my own skin.

(50:39):
It's not that I don't like itthere, it's just that, you know,
and of course every time I goback, the food prices are it
seems like they double.
And I maybe it's the same thingin the UK, but just things, and
I get back and yeah, I just kindof feel like I'm kind of already
out of touch.
And then when I I spend a lot oftime in Colombia, it feels kind
of like my home, probably morethan any other place, but I

(51:02):
leave and go other places, visitother places.
So for me, every time I back tocome back to Colombia, I feel
like, oh, I'm home.
I understand, I feel like Iunderstand how things work here.
I can connect with people,communicate with people, and
move through my daily life, andit just feels much more normal
than it does even when I go tothe US.
So it's interesting how we maybethe place we were born or the

(51:24):
place we grew up isn't like thenatural fit for our
personalities, or there's anenergy thing, right?
And there's probably researcharound that, but it it's just
like I feel like I'm moreColombian than I am.
Uh we would say American, but ifyou say American to Colombians
are like, no, we're allAmericans, we're all on the
American continent.

SPEAKER_05 (51:44):
Yeah, US American.

SPEAKER_07 (51:46):
I've become very sensitive to not using the word
American, even though it makeseasier because most of the world
understands exactly what you'resaying when you say that.

SPEAKER_01 (51:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (51:55):
But which actually reminds me, because in in
English, we don't have anotherword for American.
We could say I'm from the UnitedStates or a United States
citizen or whatever.
But you know, in the SpanishSpanish language, they have a
specific word for somebody fromthe US, and I'm afraid to even
try and say it, but it'ssomething like Estadinancia or
something like that.

SPEAKER_01 (52:14):
Interesting.

SPEAKER_07 (52:15):
Yeah, so they have a word, so it's very easy for
them.
You know, they would say you'reColombian, you're Mexican,
you're French, you're German,you're estadoenencia, or
whatever.
So it makes sense for them.
They've got a word for that.
So when they hear Americans,people from the US say, Oh, I'm
American, they're like, geez,you you Americans.
It's an interesting languagething.

(52:35):
So the reason I'm bringing thatup is uh you were interested in
English.
That was a strong suit for you,but you also had a family that
traveled.
You mentioned, you know, youryour sister, I believe it was,
had learned some some words whenshe was in in Morocco.
Have you studied otherlanguages?
Was that part of your thing?
Is that something you're reallyinto as well?

(52:57):
Because you I think youmentioned that you lived in
Spain as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 (53:01):
So I did French growing up.
So from the age of 12, I learnedFrench in school, so 12 to 18,
but I didn't have a knack forit.
I think part of the reason isbecause the US education system
doesn't really do an amazing jobof teaching languages, or at
least not in the sense of beingable to use them in a natural
way.
So my French is not good.

(53:23):
And then when and I guess youcould also add, I grew up in
Southern California, which isfull of Spanish speakers.
And I, for whatever reason,decided to learn French, which I
don't regret, but I, you know, Ithink back on it and I think,
ooh, oops.
But when I moved to Spain, I didnot speak Spanish, and that was
quite an adjustment.

(53:44):
And it was a little bit of abaptism by fire, and it was a
good thing because I did learn,I learned the basics very well.
Like I can order food at arestaurant and I can get
groceries, you know, all thethings that you have to do, I
can do that.
No problem, I wouldn't bat aneyelid.
But having meaningfulconversations is much more
difficult for me.
I don't think I have a knack forlanguages.

(54:05):
Um, but I'm grateful that Ihave, I did have that
experience.
And then my partner here in EastLondon is British and Turkish.
And so now I've been trying tospeak, I've been trying to learn
a little bit of Turkish, andthat's that's much more
difficult, actually.
So now I'm like, oh gosh, I wishI'd have just, you know, really
applied myself with Spanish.

(54:26):
That probably would have beenmuch easier.
But you know.

SPEAKER_07 (54:29):
But yeah, and I'll tell you, I I kind of similar
story that before I startedtraveling full-time, I was
living in Arizona.
I lived in Arizona for, I don'tknow, five, six, seven years.
Plenty of opportunities to learnSpanish, to practice Spanish.
Did I?
No, of course not.
And then when I got to Colombiathe first, you know, four and a
half years ago, and I thoughtmaybe I'll stick around in Latin

(54:51):
America for a while, is itbecame obvious?
Probably time to start learning.

SPEAKER_05 (54:55):
Yeah.
And how did it go?

SPEAKER_07 (54:57):
It was so much easier, and it just came because
I had to.
That's the difference.
Like I'm pretty, I'm kind of onthe extrovert side, and uh, I
want to talk to people, I wantto connect with people.
So perfect.
Yeah.
Quickly learned that the onlyway I'm gonna really be able to
do that is start to startlearning.

SPEAKER_01 (55:14):
And it takes a lot of confidence, yeah, because it
could be very humbling to bemuddling through a foreign
language.

SPEAKER_07 (55:22):
And another thing I I learned pretty quickly was,
you know what, we're all likethat.
So me, me in Colombia or Mexicotrying to have a conversation,
you know, because there's plentyof there's plenty of people in
the Latin world that speak someEnglish.
Not not everybody.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna overexaggerate this.
It's it's not easy to findpeople to do.

(55:43):
But what I've learned, and Ithink it's common, is if I'm
trying in Spanish and they'vegot a little bit, maybe their
English is about as good as mySpanish, if they hear me trying,
they are much more likely toopen up and try as well.
Yeah where where if I justshowed up and just expected to
find just to find people thatcould speak some English, I

(56:05):
think the vast majority of themwould just look at me and say,
nope, no habla English, and itwould be done.
But since I'm trying, they wouldtry.
It's the same thing.
It's kind of a when I was youngand I visited France, I think
when I was 15, and I'd had threeyears of French in school.
And I quit But like you said, Irealized, okay, like in school,
I was like, oh, I'm one of thetop students.

(56:26):
I I I know this French thing,and you go to Paris.
And uh yeah, it's it's atotally, totally different
animal.
But just the fact that I waswilling to try and speak in
French, you know, those thestereotypical Parisian who
doesn't have any time for forsomebody from the US, at least
it would soften them up a littlebit.
They'd at least, you know, startto try and and communicate.

(56:48):
So I think there's value, valuein that.
How uh let's okay, let's go backbecause I I want to make sure we
don't miss any, we've alreadycovered a lot of great stuff,
but I want to make sure we don'tmiss any any other huge things
that we just gloss over.
So you went to school, you weremajoring in communication right
from the beginning, is thatright?
And did you stick withcommunication all the way

(57:08):
through?

SPEAKER_01 (57:09):
Yeah, and something that was great about the
education system in England, andone of the appeals for me coming
here is that when you study in auniversity, you just study that
subject.
So I wasn't taking any other,you know, I you don't have to
take math and science and allthese other, you know, subjects.
So I loved that.
So I only did communications,uh, and I was able to hear you

(57:30):
graduate in three years ratherthan four years as well.
So in three years, I got mybachelor's degree, and then I
had one additional year where Igot my master's degree.
So in four years, I was able toget two degrees, which is, you
know, and truly a fraction ofthe price of what it would have
been in the US.
So really, even that in and ofitself made it a fantastic

(57:51):
decision for me.

SPEAKER_07 (57:52):
Was there, I hear all the the pros.
The pros sound amazing.
And what are the cons?
Was there any downside to theway that I was gonna say you did
that, but I guess it's just theway they do it there.
Was there a downside to that?
Do you feel like you missed outon that?

SPEAKER_01 (58:07):
Interesting question.
One thing I did notice is Idon't know if this is a good
thing or a bad thing, but Iguess just stepping back a
little bit and talking aboutAmerican culture.
So whether it's academic or workculture, Americans hustle and
they really, you know, youreally have to fight to get to
where you want to be.
And I think that there's a lotof pressure to be quote unquote

(58:30):
successful.
And I think in high school Imanaged to use that to my
advantage in the sense that Iwas ambitious and it got me over
to England.
And then I got to England andsuddenly that culture kind of
disappeared.
And there were a lot of peoplethat didn't, they were in, you
know, they were really smartpeople and they clearly worked
hard in school, but it wasalmost like here I am at

(58:54):
university.
I'm kind of here to have fun.
And whereas my friends in the USwere like really, you know, they
were it was rigorous.
And so I did feel a little bitlike I lost a little bit of that
like being pushed to strive formore.
Luckily, I didn't really need tobe pushed because I was so
grateful to be there and I wantI was so interested in the
subject anyway, that I, youknow, I engaged.

(59:16):
But I knew a lot of people thatwouldn't show up to lectures,
wouldn't show up to seminars,and I think part of that as well
is yeah, I think part of it isalso because it's so much
cheaper that maybe they didn'tfeel as much of a like, I really
need to take advantage of this.

SPEAKER_03 (59:31):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (59:31):
So it's just an it's an interesting one.
But other than that, I thoughtthe quality of the education was
amazing.
My professors were amazing,University of Leeds is amazing.
Shout out to Leeds.
So yeah, in that sense, it itwas a great experience.
And as I said, I feel lucky Igot to have two degrees.

SPEAKER_07 (59:47):
As far as because you mentioned the things you
didn't have to do, you didn'thave to study math or biology or
all those 101 courses that mostpeople in the US end up taking a
bunch of classes that I guessyou could say maybe they don't
need or it doesn't contributedirectly to their degree.
But I also, you know, when I wasin school it was uh well, here's

(01:00:11):
the thing.
I imagine i if I'm doingcommunications and pretty much
every class I do iscommunications related, and
which means uh presumably allthe other students are also
communications majors.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:23):
Uh right.

SPEAKER_07 (01:00:24):
You're hanging out with a bunch of communications
people and you don't have theopportunity to maybe be exposed
to the people that are doingcomputer science or math or or
engineering.
And I wonder, I guess that's youknow, I just wonder if you kind
of miss out on not being exposedto maybe some of those.
Well, here's an example.

(01:00:44):
If I'm a computer science majorand I'm only going to class with
a bunch of computer scientists,yeah.
I've spent four or five years atuniversity to get my master's
degree, and I and I never oncehung out with anybody that was
there for theater or music orEnglish or anything like that.

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:02):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:01:03):
So what are your thoughts on some as somebody who
went through a program like youdid?
Is there any relevance to that?
Would you advise anybody?

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:11):
Yeah, I've never looked at it that way.
I think that there were somedegrees that were really like
that where it was very insularand people really stuck with
each other.
And in a way, I think in havingthat network is a good thing.
My degree wasn't so much likethat.
It was very kind of, you know,there was lots of different
disciplines withincommunications.
So there were the people thatwere yeah, there were people

(01:01:32):
that were doing cinema, therewere people that were doing
radio.
There this is I remember newmedia was social media was
coming about.
So that was like the new degree,and it was kind of weird.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:43):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:44):
So in that sense, and and I also think the
professors did a really good jobof making it multidisciplinary,
and we did pull in from otherdisciplines, but my uh student,
we called them student halls.
My student halls were verydiverse.
And so the people that Iactually ended up being friends
with and am still friends withtoday are from all different,
they did all sorts of differentuh degrees.

(01:02:05):
So I think I think I did getexposed to the different
degrees.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:02:09):
Okay.
I appreciate that responsebecause I I think of like if I
am having a conversation with myson or a daughter or maybe a
grandchild someday, it it islike I see one of the benefits
of going to university asengaging with a bunch of
different people from adifferent, bunch of different
backgrounds.
And if my kid was going intoaccounting, I would encourage
them to, you know, maybe takesome, you know, music classes or

(01:02:33):
dance classes or whatever.
But that and that just kind ofnaturally happens in our typical
university structure here.
So I was just wondering if ifthat was something okay.
So from the time you started asa communications major until you
finished with your master'sdegree in communications, did
you still love it the same?
Did you love it less?
Did you love it more?
Were you still as enthusiasticby the time you graduated?

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:55):
I still loved it.
I loved it more.
And I was really interested inmedia.
I found media fascinating andjust the way that we
communicate, but I didn't knowexactly how I was going to apply
that in my career.
But again, I knew I was good atwriting.
So it was kind of like, okay,this is the thing that I can do
really well.
And to be honest, I think earlyin my career, I rested on my
laurels a little bit with thatbecause it was like, oh yeah, I

(01:03:18):
can write.
Like, yeah, I could do anything,no problem.
And to an extent, that's thecase.
You, you know, I can I canbasically write till the cows
come home.
But obviously over the yearsI've developed my craft and
there's actually now I'velearned all of because that was,
I guess that's another thing.
My degree wasn't super practicalin the sense that I wasn't
learning like these are theprinciples of marketing, for

(01:03:39):
example.
So then I I I can't rememberhow, but I decided I was gonna
get into marketing because thatseemed to make the most sense
for what I was uh good at andwhat I was interested in.
And so when I was applying forjobs, that was that was what I
looked into.
And I looked into travelbusinesses because of course I
at that point had developed mypassion for travel.

(01:03:59):
So that's that's that's how Istarted my career was at a
travel business.

SPEAKER_07 (01:04:03):
Okay.
So tell me, yeah, well, beforewe before you tell me about
working in that travel business,let's talk about marketing a
little bit because I see wheremarketing connects, it seems
like it would make sense, butI've also remember hearing from
you know, and I've I've workedin kind of the marketing space
for a while as well.
And I came across this conceptthat marketing is an awful lot
of analytics and a lot of justkind of spreadsheets and stuff

(01:04:28):
like that.

SPEAKER_04 (01:04:29):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:04:29):
And I and it seems almost contradictory sometimes
to maybe somebody that likes towants to share a story and write
things and get to the bottom ofemotions and all this stuff.
And then maybe you get amarketing job and somebody sits
you in front of a spreadsheetand you're analyzing, you know,
Google paid ads results andtweaking and try and all these
different things.

(01:04:50):
Did that all feel did you evenend up doing any of that stuff?
Or what what would you likesomebody to know about the
realities of working inmarketing when you're passionate
about writing and storytelling?
Because it's not always the samething, I think.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:02):
For sure.
There are, yeah, there aremarketing people that are super
uh well, I guess, for example,performance marketing people who
go into, you know, the analyticsand the numbers versus the brand
people, for example, that aremuch more into the creative.
But digital marketing overall,it all overlaps and you need to
be able to pull from all ofthose things.
So I would say that that was themuscle I had to build was the

(01:05:26):
analytical side of things.
And I'm grateful that I didhave.
And again, I would, if I wasspeaking to, you know, let's say
an 18-year-old that wasinterested in getting into
marketing, I would definitelysay, go into broad marketing
roles so you can figure out whatyou actually want to do.
For example, I got the idea inmy head I wanted to do PR and I
did an internship in PR andquickly realized that you have

(01:05:48):
to be quite extroverted to dopre-PR.
And I thought, oh no, this isnot what I want to do at all.

SPEAKER_06 (01:05:54):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:55):
So I I basically tried out a lot of different
things and I had several rolesthat were broad, which I'm glad
for because they pushed me andchallenged me in ways that I had
to learn the full scope ofmarketing.
And then now later on in mycareer, when I realized, okay,
no, the writing side of thingsis definitely where I want to
be, I've been able to specializedown that route.
Uh, but as always informed byall the other stuff.

(01:06:17):
It's just that's not what I leaninto anymore.

SPEAKER_07 (01:06:21):
I think when I I had when I actually around the time
I started this podcast, I kindof thought, oh, I'll do digital
marketing stuff.
And that was great.
And tell people that, well, uh,can you do SEO uh analytics and
paid ads and all this stuff?
And I realized, yeah, I reallydon't want to do that.

SPEAKER_05 (01:06:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:06:39):
Can I just build a website for you that looks
pretty?
Or, you know, maybe even, youknow, uh some email automations
or, you know, and yeah, and I Irealized maybe digital marketing
is not really my thing.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:53):
And there's so many, even like for example, I've done
quite a lot of social mediamarketing, which I don't do as
much anymore, but it's sointeresting the way people
perceive it, because everyonethinks they can do social media
or Everyone thinks it's a it'san easy job.

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:06):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:07):
My goodness, is there a lot involved in doing
social media marketing?
So yeah, I I totally get whatyou're saying.

SPEAKER_07 (01:07:14):
Yeah.
All right.
So you got you got hired by atravel company.
So that was that was was thatyour first job out of out of
school?

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:23):
That was my first job, and that was why I moved to
Spain.
So my first job at a travelcompany in Spain.
So that was how that happened.

SPEAKER_07 (01:07:30):
And were they operating in Spanish?
Uh there's just tell me.
I don't want to jump the gun,but yeah, tell me about that.
What was that like?

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:38):
So when I graduated and I was applying for jobs, I
had it again, it was just in myhead, okay, I'm in the EU.
I'm gonna get a job in the EU.
I'm gonna find a job, anyEnglish-speaking job, but I
didn't want to be a teacher.
So okay, any English speakingmarketing job in the EU.
And so I was applying to allthese different jobs.
And uh I actually got acceptedinto a job at a it was it was to

(01:08:01):
write blog content for a tunaindustry company in the
Netherlands uh in a place calledTilburg, which I decided, I was
like, you know, I did say Iwould go anywhere, but then I
looked into it and I was like, Ijust don't think that is gonna
be the right fit for me.

SPEAKER_07 (01:08:16):
So I I declined that based what was what was the
biggest part of the decision?
The geography involved or thewriting about Cantuna?

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:25):
It was a combination, I think more the
the writing about tuna.

SPEAKER_07 (01:08:29):
I don't what would you write about?
You gotta be creative.
Well, you're creative, I'm sureyou can find it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:34):
The industry, yeah, the industry a whole.
And you know, it tracks to whereI am now because I do prefer
doing B2C marketing versus B2B.
But I think also I looked into,and you know, how we were
talking about earlier aboutcertain places just resonate
with you more.
And I looked into where that wasgonna be and kind of, you know,
the how I would be able to getaround, et cetera, et cetera.

(01:08:55):
And I just thought this doesn't,it just doesn't feel like a good
fit.
So anyway, I'm really glad thatI didn't do that because that
was when I found I got offeredthis job in Seville, Spain,
which I'd never I had neverbeen, I didn't know anything
about it, and it was for aluxury camping company.
Uh so basically it was like theAirbnb of luxury camping.

(01:09:15):
And they needed a copywriter.
And this was at the, you know,this was this was when SEO was
first really becoming a bigthing.
And so that was how I started mycareer was doing SEO
copywriting, which was great.
And obviously, it gave me theopportunity to move there.
So it was it literally was Ijust I landed and I found an
apartment and and I started atthis job, but it was all English

(01:09:37):
speaking.
So even though the so thefounder of the company was from
Spain and he did a businessdegree in the US, and I think I
can't remember the details, butI think Spain paid for him to go
do that degree.
But the requirement on hisscholarship was that he had to
come and start his business backin Spain.

SPEAKER_07 (01:09:55):
So that's he started a business, an English-based
business, but it was in Spain.

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:58):
In Spain.
And he and so a lot of Englishand American people worked there
or English-speaking Spanishpeople worked there.

SPEAKER_07 (01:10:06):
Okay, that's cool.
Yeah.
Did uh so one thing youmentioned that I uh I guess it
just I don't know, popped intomy head.
You said with the copywritingwith the SEO, that was a big
thing.
And then I remember I had triedto kind of write some of my own
stuff, you know, for some forsome websites and businesses I'd
had in the past, and it wastrying to trying to write with

(01:10:27):
SEO in mind, yeah, didn't alwaysfeel very natural.
So I I'm curious I'm sure it'snatural to you.
But if but do you have a strongpreference for if somebody said,
I just want you to write stuffthat's really good, or I want
you to write stuff that's gonnahelp us with our SEO.

SPEAKER_04 (01:10:43):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:10:43):
Do you have do you have a different physical,
emotional reaction to either ofthose two job offers?

SPEAKER_01 (01:10:49):
Yeah, I'm a big believer that you can you can
keep the integrity of your brandand and the voice of your brand
and still apply the principlesof content marketing and digital
marketing.
There should be a balance.
If you if you just writesomething that you only want it
to be like super high quality inyour brand voice, but you're not
gonna optimize it for theinternet at all.

(01:11:10):
I mean, yes, you can send it topeople or you can you know you
can share it and people will seeit and it is a great reflection
of your brand.
But what is the purpose of thatpiece of content?
Because if the purpose is to getread.

SPEAKER_06 (01:11:22):
Yeah, get read, get tracked, convey a message, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:25):
Then it's what what's the point of doing that?
So I think you have to have abalance of those two things.
I would say the the principlesof content marketing apply,
whether we're talking about SEOor now in the age of AI.
It's that you need to make surethat you are writing for humans
first and foremost.
If it's not interesting tohumans, there's no point in
writing it.
But you can also do so in a waywhere, okay, what are humans

(01:11:46):
searching for at the moment?
If they're searching for thiscertain keyword, that means
they're interested in that.
So how can I write this piece ofyeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:11:54):
It sounds like the difference between, well, I if
you go back to before, likeright now we can we see stuff
and we recognize, oh, that's AI.
But before that, you know, whenthe blogs and the websites, you
know, go back a little ways.
I think we all had seen pagesthat were just stuffed with
keywords.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:12):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:12:13):
That it was like, my gosh, this is horrible.
But the trick, but that's justthat's just bad writing.

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:20):
I think it's a similar conversation.
Yeah, it's a similarconversation.
Because you don't want tosacrifice quality for doing
those things, but you have to doit in a smart way, don't you?
You have to be strategic aboutit.

SPEAKER_07 (01:12:32):
Because if we read it and it's just full of
keywords and it's just horriblywritten and it's repeating the
same stuff, and you're justlike, wow, this is really bad.
You might, you might, if you'renot a writer, you don't work in
marketing, you might think, wow,this SEO, whatever this SEO
optimized writing stuff is, ishorrible.
Why I would hate to have to dothat as a job.
But then when you see a blogpost, you Google something, you

(01:12:53):
see a blog post, and you'relike, oh, this is really
helpful, and you stick around onit.
The I the the point is you don'tknow that it was SEO'd.
It it's not obvious that it waswritten for SEO, but it's also
very good for SEO.
I right you can have goodwriting that's also gets in
front of people because it'sit's well optimized, right?
It's just my and adding value.

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:14):
I think as long as that piece of content adds value
to the reader, then they'llthey'll forgive you for putting
a few keywords in there becausethey know that you've written
that for them and it makes senseto them and they've gained
something from it.
Otherwise, they'll resent youbecause they clicked on it and
then you know you've wastedtheir time.

SPEAKER_07 (01:13:30):
If it's a whole if it's a whole article full of
keywords that you get to the endof it and you're like, wow, I
just wasted five minutes or 10minutes or however long it is,
that's a little different thanyou recognize there's uh I see
this keyword a few times, butthis is a really helpful
article, and I'm gettingsomething out of it.
That's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:47):
So and it goes down to what are your KPIs?
What do you see as success?
Because if you if you just wanttraffic, fine, you can get that
traffic, but then is thatmeaningful traffic?
Is it gonna do anything?
So you really have to balancethe two things.

SPEAKER_07 (01:13:59):
And that yeah, and that comes into, you know, yeah,
what's the the marketing companyor the writer that wrote the
stuff?
Is are they going to theirclient and saying, Look, I got
you all this traffic, or or isit I'm getting you conversions,
I'm getting email signups, I'mgetting followers or whatever.
All right, oil brands.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:15):
Yeah, advocates that are gonna come back to you.

SPEAKER_07 (01:14:18):
Right.
So what did you what was thebiggest takeaway you got from
your job in Spain?

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:23):
You know what?

SPEAKER_07 (01:14:24):
I think personally, probably.
We could talk about business,but I mean personally, I'm just
curious.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:28):
Well, I guess my job in Spain, that it gave me
confidence.
I think it gave me confidencethat, like, oh, I can I can make
a career in this.
And, you know, obviously movingabroad gives you confidence.
So the fact that I was able tobuild a life in Spain, uh, I
lived there for almost twoyears.
So it was my first job, my firsttime living somewhere where they
don't speak English.
I think both of those thingsgave me a lot of confidence.

(01:14:50):
And then I, you know, I got to apoint where I felt like I had
outgrown the job.
And I also living in in southernSpain is a very relaxed
lifestyle.
It's an amazing lifestyle, but Iwas, yeah, I can't, I was in my
early 20s and I kind of feltlike, okay, I think I need to
pick it up, pick up the pace alittle bit.
So that's when I moved toLondon.
And I certainly that's you know,I certainly picked up the pace.

(01:15:11):
But yeah, it was a reallyformative experience for me
living there.

SPEAKER_07 (01:15:15):
Very cool.
It's interesting because youkind of you mentioned that when
you went to school in the UK,people were just more laid back,
relaxed.
I'm here to have fun.

SPEAKER_04 (01:15:24):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:15:25):
And then you said you went to Spain, where it
sounds like it was even morelaid back and relaxed.
And uh and okay.
So just kind of walk me throughfrom when you left Spain, you
went back to London to kind ofwhere where you are now and and
what you're excited about, youknow, during or what got you
most excited during that processof transitioning to where you

(01:15:46):
are now.

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:47):
Yeah, it was really exciting.
It was the first time that Ilived in a really big city, and
I got a job uh as the marketingmanager at a really iconic
restaurant in London.
It's called the Oxo TowerRestaurant, and it's got this
beautiful terrace with a view ofSt.
Paul's and the River Thames, andit's just, I don't know how I
managed to get that.
You know, it's funny actually,because sometimes as a someone

(01:16:10):
who writes and travel, youthink, who gives me the right to
write about these places?
But yeah, it was it was my firsttime where I was like, oh, you
know what, I can do this.
You know, I'm not a Londoneryet, but I can really visualize
what it is that makes this placeso special, why it's a landmark
uh restaurant here, and I'mgonna bring that to life.
So that was, yeah, that was myfirst job when I moved to

(01:16:33):
London.
And since then I've had twoother jobs in London full-time
that were both, again, alldifferent industries.
So I did move around, I wasn'talways in travel.
But all of the companies thatI've worked for since then have
been very London rooted, and alot of the work that I'm doing
for them or did for them wasabout showing that London
character in their marketing.

(01:16:54):
So that's been really fun.

SPEAKER_07 (01:16:55):
Do you think that you had an advantage as being
someone, you know, from the USwith the accent?
Do you think that was anadvantage or did it make it more
difficult for you overall?

SPEAKER_01 (01:17:07):
I think it was an advantage.
I think that people perceiveAmericans as confident, as
driven.
I think, you know, there arepeople that kind of sneer at
Americans in in Europe, andthat's fine.
I whatever.
But I think overall it has Ithink that Americans carry
themselves, not I mean, this isa um a generalization, but they

(01:17:30):
carry themselves withconfidence.
Yeah.
They carry themselves withconfidence.
Yes, we're loud sometimes.
I know, but you know, we we getthings done, we we solve
problems, and we have, I wouldsay a good attitude.
Again, I know this is a bit, Iknow this isn't always the case.
But anyway, I think that that ishow I was perceived in some

(01:17:50):
instances.
And I think I'm clearly not I'mnot an American who's just gonna
come in and bulldoze overbecause there's I think there's
that stereotype kind of goingback to what you were saying
about how Americans just callthemselves Americans.
And it's so um it's so arrogant,right?
But that's just how it is.
So I I don't I don't know, Idon't think I would, I don't
know if you've ever seen Emilyin Paris, but she kind of just

(01:18:12):
comes in.
You should watch it actually,because it's quite amusing.
And it is she it's this Americanthat she comes in and she's
driven and she's you know, she'sgot charisma, et cetera, et
cetera.
But she just isn't, she doesn'tunderstand French culture, and
so it's really jarring.
And so I don't think that I didthat in London.
I think I I entered the scenewith humility, and I think that

(01:18:35):
has gotten me far.
Um, there might be people outthere that disagree.
I don't know.
They can leave that in thecomments.

SPEAKER_07 (01:18:40):
Cause I can imagine, you know, you apply for a job
with this restaurant that youmentioned, this iconic uh
restaurant in London, and theboard sitting around trying to
decide whether they want tooffer you a job.
Um, you know, there's someonethere.

SPEAKER_04 (01:18:53):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:18:53):
How can somebody, how can we hire an American to
come write about this iconicLondon restaurant?
It just doesn't make sense.
And then someone else on theboard might say, you know what,
this is great because we wantmaybe because tourism is
important.
Maybe we want to appeal to theUS market.
I remember when I, you know, wasspending quite a bit of time in

(01:19:15):
Colombia, I had a client thathired me to do some stuff, and
he said, geez, Jason, we shouldhave you go around and and do,
you know, create videos of thedifferent destinations that we
work with in Colombia, and youcan kind of because you look
like the our typical client, youknow, instead of hiring somebody
in Colombia to walk around andsay how great Colombia is, hires

(01:19:36):
you know, somebody that lookslike the typical client to walk
around and talk about how greatColombia is, it just makes a
difference.
So that's why I guess what wasbehind the question is if it
helped you with the travelwriting, because presumably so
many of your clients are superinterested in the US market.
I'm just guessing.

SPEAKER_01 (01:19:52):
Definitely.
And you know, I would also say,so now that I've lived in,
because I was obviously fresh toLondon at that point, now I've
lived in London for 10 years.
And something I love now is whenfriends or other people come and
visit London and they're tellingme, they're noticing things.
And oh, did you hear about thisrestaurant?
And I heard I had a friend herethe other weekend that was, oh,
this restaurant has the beststicky toffee pudding.

(01:20:14):
And so it is, it's like havingpeople highlight those things
that actually are reallyexciting about a place.
I think it's a benefit to havingsomebody.
And then another thing I wouldsay is that London is such a
diverse city, it is soincredibly diverse that I I also
imagine that they were probablyjust like, oh, it's just like
another, you know, anotherforeign person.

SPEAKER_07 (01:20:34):
So that's that's true.
And I think most of us have hadthe experience where they visit
a place and like our like me, Iyou know, I've been traveling
full-time four and a half years,quite a few places, and I show
up and I'm like, oh my gosh, themetro is so cool, or the metro
cables, or the buses, or thestreet food.
And then I meet people that havelived in there, you know.

(01:20:54):
I'm also single, so I do date onoccasion, and I'll meet
somebody.
And and in my mind, I'mthinking, you know what, we
should do, we should go get onthe metro.
We're gonna go to the metrocable, take the metro cable up
into the mountains, and thenwe're gonna eat empanadas on top
of the mountain.
To me, that sounds amazing.
I'm like, wow, what a good date.
And they're like, Jason, are youkidding me?

SPEAKER_05 (01:21:13):
Like, you want to do what?

SPEAKER_07 (01:21:14):
I never I never get a second date because they they
they're like, I do that everyday.
That's you know, it's so it's wejust have different
perspectives.
There's no right or wrong.
I get that.
You know, if if somebody wasvisiting me in the US and wanted
to go to McDonald's every day,I'd probably like, are you well,
okay?
We I'll go.

SPEAKER_01 (01:21:32):
I'm always happy to share things, but you know,
yeah, it's uh yeah, and I thinkas well, it is being in the
travel industry, you have to,there's just so many things that
you have to navigate, and it isit's that awareness that I don't
necessarily know best, but Ihave a curiosity about these
places and I hope that I canopen them up to other people,
but it's a whole minefield.
I mean, I'm very aware of it.

SPEAKER_07 (01:21:51):
Yeah, it's it's you touched on the key there, I
think is the curiosity.
Because if you hire, you know,I'm in Bogota.
If I hire a great guide inBogota, you know what?
He'd probably take me on themetro, take me up the metro
cable and eat empanadas, and hewould just be enthusiastic about
it.
And he's like, Oh, I've got thisreally cool place that you know
we can we can you know go getwhatever.

(01:22:14):
And but that's it's just areflection of that openness and
that curiosity, and veryimportantly, the desire to
share.
Because that's that's the partbecause empanadas can be really
boring if you're just talkingabout empanadas.
If you're talking about sharing,if you're talking about sharing
empanadas on the street and witha story behind it and all this
stuff, it's a totally different,totally different thing, which

(01:22:34):
is what we're talking about isyou know that storytelling and
and authentic, authenticconnection.
So all right, so you worked fora few different brands, and now
you're you're I don't want tosay you're doing your own thing,
but I mean that in a verypositive way.
You're doing your own thing.
Yeah.
Right?
So yeah.
So let's discuss a little bithow you transitioned into that
and uh kind of what that's like.

SPEAKER_01 (01:22:57):
So I decided after, yeah, working full-time with
companies, I guess there weretwo things that I that that
fostered this decision.
One was that I wanted moreflexibility to be able to go
back and forth to the US.
And obviously, when you're in afull-time job, that's that's
more difficult.

SPEAKER_04 (01:23:14):
That's a travel job.

SPEAKER_01 (01:23:15):
And and to travel in general, because I really enjoy
slow travel.
And when you're just trying totravel on the weekend or, you
know, on limited vacation days,it's it's very difficult to do
that.
So I wanted to live more of thatlifestyle.
And then the second thing wasthat I wanted to be more
specialized in copywriting and Iwanted to go back into the
travel industry.
And I thought, okay, well, I canget both of those things.

(01:23:36):
I can really focus in oncopywriting and develop my craft
and my experience doing that,and I'll have the flexibility of
freelancing.
So I decided to go freelanceover two years ago now, and it's
been amazing, but it is awhirlwind for sure.
I mean, you really have to,gosh, I did it because I wanted
to do just do copywriting, andit's like, oh, I have to be a
whole business owner, andthere's, you know, there's sales

(01:23:59):
and there's so many things umthat I've had to navigate.
But I've learned so much fromdoing so, and it's been amazing.
And I've been able to be um moreselective about the types of
companies that I work with,which is great, and it's really
helped me get in touch with thetype of work that I like to be
doing, the type of clients thatI like to work with.
So it's been a really fantasticexperience, but it's it's not

(01:24:22):
easy.

SPEAKER_07 (01:24:23):
Did you just jump right into it?
Like, okay, you quit your joband started your own thing, or
did you transition?
How did you do it?
You did.

SPEAKER_01 (01:24:30):
I sure did.
Would you do it?

SPEAKER_07 (01:24:31):
Would you do it that same way again?

SPEAKER_01 (01:24:34):
No, probably not.
I really wanted to go all in andI was like, I'm ready, I'm gonna
do it, and I went all in.
There's pros and cons to doingthat.
I would say to anyone thinkingof doing it, make sure you have
a big buffer to tide you overbecause there's going to be ups
and downs, and it's it's verydifficult to keep, you know,
you're just so used to having asteady income, and then suddenly

(01:24:55):
you're you're super busy onemonth and then you're quiet the
next, and especially in traveltoo, there's peaks and troughs,
and you know, at the moment, thethe economy is not great, and
certainly a lot of people arenot traveling at the moment for
various different reasons.
So there's ups and downs.
Um, but in a way, I do kind ofagain, it's like that sink or
swim thing where it's like I Iwas like, I'm just gonna go all

(01:25:17):
in and I'm gonna make it work.
And if it fails, at least I knowthat I really, really gave it a
shot.
But there's something to be saidabout maybe like dipping your
toes in and kind of graduallygetting into it as well.

SPEAKER_07 (01:25:29):
Yeah, and it's it's always easy to look back and
say, well, like maybe I shouldhave done it a slightly
different way, but it but I'malso concerned that so many
people have this dream.
They're like, I really want todo my own thing, but I'm afraid
to do it, so I'll start it onthe side.
But then they sometimes it'sreally hard to get things going

(01:25:49):
when you're starting them on theside.
It's just I guess it justdepends on the person and what
it is.
I definitely kind of just jumpedin myself, but I appreciate the,
you know, it's hard to get usedto the ups and downs.
And it's like, you know, ifevery couple of weeks you're
going through an existentialcrisis.

SPEAKER_05 (01:26:07):
Yeah, oh my goodness, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:26:08):
$3.43 left in your bank account, and you're hoping
that client who said I'll payyou by the end of the week
actually comes through.
And yeah, yeah, you get you getto Friday and you don't get the
notice yet, and you're like, youknow, it's it's just like, am I
really doing, you know, maybe Ishouldn't be doing website
copywriting.

SPEAKER_01 (01:26:24):
Maybe I should have gone all in with the social
media captions.
There's so many ways that youcan position yourself in the
market.
So again, it's interesting as abrand person and as a copywriter
because I do have to remindmyself, okay, wait a second, sit
back and think about how you'repositioning yourself, because
that's important too.
And in fact, I had to do thatbefore our call because I was

(01:26:44):
like, yeah, how exactly should Iposition myself?
Because it's a minefield.
There's just so many axes youcan go down.
So again, I really sympathizewith anyone that started a
business.
It's it's not easy.

SPEAKER_07 (01:26:56):
It's not, but at the same time, you know, what I've
noticed is when I'm doing, Iguess what I would call a job,
you know, like just kind ofstraight, like maybe I'm doing
some some work for a clientthat's not super exciting.

SPEAKER_02 (01:27:09):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:27:10):
Not if my clients are listening, I you know, I
love all I appreciate theopportunity.
And it's so when I contrast howI feel doing that work to how I
feel when I'm, you know, workingon my own website or working on
my own business or uh, you know,creating what connections with
people, having conversationswith people like yourself, it's
like I I love it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:27:29):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:27:30):
And it's like, man, if I wasn't uh an entrepreneur,
if I wasn't self-employed, if Iwas just doing the boring work
for someone else all the time, Iwouldn't wake up at, you know,
on Sunday morning at 7 a.m.
with this idea in my head.
And I run and pull out my laptopand I end up spending all Sunday
sitting in front of my laptopand you know, creating something
that that gets me excited.

(01:27:51):
And I'm not gonna do that for aclient.

SPEAKER_01 (01:27:52):
I love my clients, but yeah, it's so true.
It's it's funny, isn't it?
It's like it's so difficult, butthen you care about it so much.
And oh yeah.
Yeah, the things that you get todo, the opportunities that you
get are amazing.
And if you if you do really leaninto the networking side of
things, I actually because I Iused to be repulsed by the idea
of networking, and now that I'veleaned into it, oh my gosh, it's

(01:28:14):
wonderful.
You get to connect like us,where it's like, oh, it's
someone that has reallyinteresting views and similar
values to me, and I can learnfrom them and you can be picky
about who you connect with.

SPEAKER_07 (01:28:26):
That's that's what I love about the podcast.
It's like it's like a universityeducation for me.
You know, every week I have a Ihave a conversation with
somebody who is aligned inpurpose and and interests, but
has different perspectives, andit's I love it.
I you know, well, we're gonnaturn this podcast into a
university for someday, and andpeople can sign up and take

(01:28:47):
classes from from folks likeyourself.
So all right.
So is there we we've discussed abunch of things that we've been
going for quite quite a while,and I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_05 (01:28:55):
I've probably met you, I feel like.

SPEAKER_07 (01:28:57):
Yeah, well, but there's I'm sure we missed
something.
We almost missed the whole factthat you met in Morocco and
Influence that had on you.
So I don't want to miss anythingelse.
But let me ask you this, Haley.
What did I forget to ask you?
What do you wish I had askedyou, or what else do you want to
share with our listeners beforewe wrap up?

SPEAKER_01 (01:29:14):
Yes, I wouldn't.
If you are a purposeful businessand the work that you're doing
out in the world is withintegrity and meaning, don't let

(01:29:39):
your online presence bemismatched with that.
Because it will show people willsee that and and think, why are
you know why are they doing thisgreat work?
But then they've got the thisreally shallow blog that's just
stuffed with keywords or isclearly written with AI, or they
send out these generic emails.
And I think what ends uphappening, and again, I really

(01:30:01):
sympathize, we're in this, youknow, I've spent over a decade
now in in the digital marketingworld, and I've seen how
increasingly there's thispressure to generate more
content and do it quicker.
And it's like everyone'sfighting to be visible.
And I think we can all agreethat we don't need any more
noise, like there's enough noiseout there.
And I would just say to thosebusinesses, don't worry about

(01:30:23):
keeping up with the Joneses.
Because if you have this, like,if you if you don't have the
resources to do all of thosecontent channels justice, you
know, you're gonna do youremails and your website and your
blog and your social channelsand et cetera.
If you try to do it all, you'renot gonna do them well.
And so I would say streamlinethat, go for depth, step back

(01:30:45):
and really think about yourbrand and your tone of voice,
who you're talking to, and howyou want to position yourself to
those people and connect withthem on an emotional level and
build a community of long-term,high-quality people that you
actually want to be yourcustomers.
You can do that by taking aquality versus quantity

(01:31:05):
approach.
So I would just because I speakto so many people that work for
small businesses, and I justwant to reassure them that you
really don't need to be killingyourself to be out there and
super, super, super visible.
The right people will resonateif you create an online presence
that that adds value and showyour own unique expertise,
insights, experiences, becauseever all people in in travel

(01:31:28):
have them and and show that andyou'll be fine.

SPEAKER_07 (01:31:32):
I I love that you said that.
I I think you're right.
I I mean, we just we startedthis conversation with you, what
brand voice strategist is is thevoice.
What I hear you saying is letthem hear your voice, whether
that means on a podcast or aYouTube channel or in your
website copy or whatever.
And the other thing that cameup, I I'm just curious what you

(01:31:53):
think.
I was actually thinking, youknow, uh if you can listen to
like go back through the arc, Idon't want to say the archives,
go through the the group ofamazing experts that I've
brought together here in thiscommunity.
And if you can listen tosomeone's episode and then go
look at their website and theirmarketing, and is there is there
a connection?

(01:32:14):
Is what you see on theirwebsite, does it sound like what
you heard when they werespeaking with Jason?

SPEAKER_04 (01:32:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:32:20):
And if those two things do not align, then maybe
there's an opportunity to havesomebody like yourself come in
and and work with them to helpcreate that alignment.
Because when they do somethinglike this, have a conversation
with me.
I believe that you know, out ofeverybody I've spoken with,
we've really got to their voice,just like we did with yours
today.
And uh to take that and comparethat to, okay, so what's your

(01:32:41):
website look like?
Because I know I I've had I'vehad conversations with people,
I'm like, oh my god, that wasthe most fascinating
conversation.
We discussed all these things,and I know what their website
looks like.
I've seen them all.
And I go look at their yeah, andI go look at their website, I'm
like, they don't even have anabout section, they don't have a
picture of anybody.
Like, I can't tell what they do.

SPEAKER_01 (01:33:03):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:33:04):
And it's it's there's the there's that
disconnect.
So I'm happy you brought thatup.

SPEAKER_01 (01:33:08):
It sounds cheesy, but I really want, like, I
personally, and this is thereason I got into this type of
work, is because I personallywant to make travel better.
Like, I think we can all travelbetter.
I think the world would benefitif we all traveled better,
whatever that means to you.
I have my own opinions on whatthat means.
And I want to help the company,because there are companies out
there really doing that andreally making, you know,
changing things, but they're notbeing heard and they're not

(01:33:30):
sharing their stories, and andit's a shame.
And so that's why I want to helpthem.
I want to help the companiesthat are making travel better.
And it's sometimes just a fewlittle tweaks and then and then
they're there.
So that's yeah, that's what Iwanted to say.
I wanted to say don't feel badif you're not doing that,
because I know how difficult itis as a as a business owner
myself to do all of that.

(01:33:50):
And it might just be that youneed to bring in an expert that
can just kind of tweak a fewthings or get your positioning
there or whatever.
But I know that these thesecompanies do have the integrity.
So it it should be reflected inwhat they're doing online.

SPEAKER_07 (01:34:02):
There are so many amazing people in this space.
You know, just the ones I've hada conversation with just is just
a narrow slice of the pie.
There are so many, and that'swhy I love doing this.
When I started this podcast, Ididn't know if I'd make it past
episode 10.
But I was like, wait, wait, I'vehad 10 amazing people.
There, let's find 10 more, andlet's find and it just keeps

(01:34:22):
going because there are so manyamazing people, but sometimes
you don't realize how connectedthey are, how passionate they
are, until you sit down and havea conversation with them.
It's it's that thing, you know,you've got a tour operator that
the first time his clients everconnect with him on a or him or
her on a personal level is maybethey lead a group trip.

(01:34:43):
They take a group trip to, Idon't know, Turkey or something,
and they're sitting at a hotelor a lodge with their clients
that came with them on thistrip, and they and they start
the questions how did you getinto this?
What were you doing before this?
Where were your parents from?
How do your parents meet?
All those questions that we'vejust been discussing.
Many times that's the first timethat those clients have really

(01:35:03):
had that connection with withthe person that they booked
their trip through.
So if we can if we can get thatconnection started beforehand,
you're gonna have more clients,you're gonna be able to change
more lives, you're gonna be ableto expose people to cool stuff.

SPEAKER_01 (01:35:15):
So you're speaking my language, exactly.
Yeah, you nailed it.

SPEAKER_07 (01:35:19):
Well, that's that's why we're having this
conversation, is because we'realigned.
We've got the got got that sameuh same energy and passion for
it.
So, Haley, this has been so muchfun.
I I know we we chatted for quitea while.
I appreciate I don't know if thesun is going down there yet.
Your room looks a little darker,so maybe finish summertime.

SPEAKER_01 (01:35:36):
We're good.

SPEAKER_07 (01:35:36):
Maybe it's raining.
I don't know.
But anyway, what a fascinatingconversation.
Thank you so much, and I lookforward to uh finding some
projects to collaborate with youon the future.
So thank you, Haley.

SPEAKER_01 (01:35:45):
Um great, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you askingsuch interesting questions, and
I loved our conversation.
So yeah, hope to do it again.

SPEAKER_07 (01:35:52):
All right, sounds good.
Thanks, Haley.
You have a great day.

SPEAKER_01 (01:35:54):
Take care, bye bye.

SPEAKER_07 (01:35:56):
Bye bye.

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Adventure Travel with Hayley Donigan - Brand Voice Strategist and Copywriter for travel brands

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Adventure Travel with Hayley Donigan - Brand Voice Strategist and Copywriter for travel brands