273: Lessons from Our Journey: Travel, Pivoting, and Business from Afar

Hi there. You’re listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m your host, AliceAnne Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in leadership and work-life balance. I work with clients to shift their limiting beliefs, insecurities, and self-doubt. This podcast will be filled with tools and strategies to help high-achieving women like you feel connected, empowered, and in the lead of your life, both personally and professionally. Let’s transform your life starting now. Lead yourself, the rest will follow.

Hi there, leading ladies, and welcome to today’s episode.

Today, I’m going to be talking about some lessons that I had and some revelations that I experienced while traveling with my son for a few weeks in Europe. So this will be lessons from our journey. I’ll be sharing with you how we pivoted, how I navigated business from afar, and just giving an overview of the emotions that I felt while on this trip, what this trip meant to me, and what I’m coming home with, having experienced this and what I’ve learned about myself through that.

So this trip was supposed to be a dream experience, and it absolutely was. But it also tested me in ways that I could never have expected, from travel hiccups to business surprises back home to just the emotional rollercoaster that I think I was sort of expecting, but I didn’t realize how emotional this trip would be for me.

A Promise Made When He Was Nine

First, I wanna share with you the purpose of this trip. So my son has always been very fascinated with architecture and history. And actually, when he was in fourth grade, he was nine years old, he built a Parthenon for a class project, and my husband and I were so impressed with the attention to detail and the effort that he put into this. We still have that Parthenon displayed in his bedroom. We were just so impressed with his love and his fascination for specifically that structure, and so I made a promise to him when he was nine years old that I would take him someday to see the actual Parthenon.

We started in Italy, and we visited some historical sites there, the Colosseum and just all the beautiful architecture in Rome specifically. And then we went to Pompeii, and then we moved to Greece, where we visited the Acropolis and Delphi and just some really amazing sites there.

So the trip had an emotional angle to begin with. It was exciting, and the anticipation, I mean, this promise was almost 10 years in the making. Also, my son has been a travel ball player, so he plays baseball. He played high-level baseball for his entire childhood, and he traveled a lot for that, and my husband went with him, and so they really bonded over that experience.

Christian and I (Christian is my son) didn’t really have anything that was just ours. And maybe a lot of parents don’t have that with their kids, but my husband and my son, their bond is so strong. And as he is preparing to finish high school and leave home for college, I was just realizing that I really wanted to have something that was ours.

And so we had been planning this trip. It really meant a lot to us to do this trip together and for me to fulfill that promise that I made to him when he was nine years old.

Saying Goodbye to an Era of Motherhood

I didn’t realize it as I was creating this trip, as I was planning this trip, but as we got there, I was realizing that this trip also was sort of a goodbye to that era of motherhood for me.

My daughter is four years older than he is, and she left home, she did the college thing. Parenting changed. I had to change how I was showing up in that relationship with her. And I don’t think I fully understood that when she was a senior in high school and she was getting ready to leave home, and I didn’t understand that when she was pushing for her own independence and advocating for herself. I needed to let go and just let her make her own mistakes, as hard as that is to do.

But parenting young adults is definitely a different phase of parenting. You’re kind of choosing to take a backseat. You need to take a backseat in their life. You’re not in control of so much of what they do, and you have to let them fumble and make mistakes and try things out on their own, and you really step into more of an advisor role.

Knowing that now, as my son is getting ready to leave the nest, I recognized that that era of parenting was really over for me. I was going to now have two young adults out of the nest, and they were gonna need me in very different ways.

I wasn’t expecting to grieve that era of motherhood being over. Obviously, I’m still a mother. I’m just a mother in a different way. And I think if you haven’t experienced that shift of having young kids to then having young adults, it’s kind of hard to explain. I’m struggling to explain it now, how my heart feels about letting go of that.

My little boy is not a little boy anymore. He’s not gonna need me in the ways that he has needed me the first 18 years of his life. He’s absolutely going to need me in different ways, and I’m excited for that next phase of parenting. But that doesn’t mean I’m not also sad to let go of having kids at home, you know? So it was very, very emotional for me.

Travel Hiccups and Pivoting on the Fly

I’m also not a great traveler. I don’t really enjoy unfamiliar places or experiences. I am not great with the details of travel. That’s just not a strong suit for me, and so I had hired a travel agent. I really liked her and connected with her. I felt like I had communicated well what I was looking for and what I needed.

Well, let me back up. We had a few bumps in the planning stages. I gave grace and I kind of rolled with it. But I will say that it did raise suspicion to me that maybe this wasn’t gonna be as smooth a trip as I’d hoped. And let me tell you, when we arrived in Europe, in Italy, we quickly realized that we were going to have some travel hiccups.

A few things went wrong. She put us in hotels that really were not what I was expecting. I had told her that I wanted kind of a luxury experience. This was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, being that I’m not someone who travels a lot. A European trip is a heavy lift.

You’re really making that commitment to step away from work and your life here in the States and really just step into that. It’s a big commitment, and so I thought that we had picked something that was a little bit on the higher end, like a luxury experience, but still somewhat reasonable to spend for two of us over there.

And something was lost in translation with her. I don’t know what happened, but we ended up really not in places that I felt comfortable or safe. And we had to pivot, and that really threw me, because I’m not someone who books hotels in my life. My husband handles that. I’m not great with those details. I had hired a travel agent because I have never been to Italy before, and I didn’t really know what to expect. And so having to pivot there and find new accommodations and do it on the fly, and walk away from the money we had already spent to book all of those things, was really challenging.

I think the lesson that I learned from that is don’t just trust that someone understands what you’re looking for. I am not normally a person like that, but I really felt like she understood what I was looking for. So I was incredibly disappointed that it did not translate with her. Whatever my vision was, it was not what she delivered. And I don’t know how I could have known any better, because if I was gonna do all the research beforehand, then why did I hire a travel agent? So there was just a misstep, and definitely a lack of trust moving forward.

And so that happened with our first hotel. My son and I were able to find new accommodations. We moved to a new hotel for the duration of our time in Rome, and it ended up being lovely. And we thought, “Okay, maybe she just misstepped on that first hotel.” Unfortunately, when we got to the next hotel that she booked, I had a full-blown panic attack in the lobby.

There was no way I could stay there. She had put us in an area that was really not safe. I had called my husband, but with the time change, it was the middle of the night for him. And so, long story short, we ended up changing hotels again, and then we decided to just abandon her plan and completely rebuild the trip when we got to Greece. And we found incredible accommodations in Greece.

We loved our time in Greece, and it felt like Greece was our checkpoint, where we just started with a brand-new vacation. But the lesson I learned from having to do that was that I am actually capable, and I know that I’m capable. It just wasn’t something that I had enjoyed doing. But now, having had to do it while I was there, I realized that it’s not as hard as I had told myself it would be in my mind.

I had wonderful people, friends that I reached out to at home, like, “Help me. I’m in Italy. I don’t know where to stay. Can you give me suggestions? Can you help me?” And I had wonderful people who stepped up and really helped my son and me find where we needed to be. We were able to pivot and salvage the trip and stay in lovely places that felt more aligned with what we were looking for.

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Watching My Son Step Up

I kind of went into the specific examples of changing hotels and walking away from the money that we spent, but we also had to reroute some of our transports, our itinerary changed, and we had some local challenges, just from not being familiar with the area. But my son, let me tell you, he really stepped up.

He really stepped up, and I will attribute this to the last four years of him getting himself in and out of Washington, DC. That’s where he goes to school. He was completely competent and confident with those pivots and those changes and navigating in these unfamiliar cities. I was really proud of him.

I’m actually getting a little choked up right now, because he was also very comforting. He was thoughtful and kind, and really took my feelings into consideration. When he saw that I was getting panicked or stressed, he stepped in. And this is why I say that when you’re parenting young adults, you really shift in your role, because I felt like he was somewhat of a peer.

We were navigating it together. He didn’t need me to be strong. He stepped in when he saw that I was shaky and that my confidence was not where he’s used to seeing it. And I was just incredibly proud of him. I was thankful for him. I saw so much of his father in him, and just what a kind and thoughtful and capable and confident young man he is.

And I just love that I got to witness that, even in a difficult situation. I love that I was able to see the very best of my son come out and how he helped us navigate that. I saw incredible adaptability and resilience in real-life situations and scenarios. And I just think that that’s a wonderful gift as a mother, to see that when you’re about to send your child out into the world.

I don’t wanna say on their own, because those first few years of leaving home, they do rely on you so much. But you wanna know that they’re also able to take care of themselves, and that was beautiful.

Business Bumps from Afar

I had some business bumps while I was away. My husband decided to update our computer system while I was away, and unfortunately, if you are familiar with technology, you know that technology doesn’t always work the way that you want.

And it ended up completely shutting down our entire email servers for not just one of my businesses, but both of my businesses, so no one on my teams had any access to email. And that was a little bit of an unexpected emergency, because so much happens in our email, even the ability to process tuition payments and get on those servers and communicate with the greater team. It really created some bumps, and there was nothing I could do about it overseas.

And yet, because my telephone and my master email are tied to so much of getting two-factor authentication and security checks and things like that, I ended up having to step in and kind of support all of those challenges, even though I was there and they were here. And that was kind of a downer.

I am not gonna lie, it was a little bit of a downer, because when you’re away from your business, you really hope that your systems and your processes are in place and that everything’s gonna run smoothly. So to have that sort of hiccup was just a reminder that you can’t really fully step away.

There’s nothing they could have done. Those two-factor authentication codes were coming to my phone. I had all the master passwords, and while they were able to get that from our server, if the server was down, they had no access to it.

So we had to pivot. And what I really appreciate is my leadership. I trust my team. I told them, “Hey, there’s really nothing I can do from here. You’re just gonna have to wait it out. You’re just going to have to communicate in a different way. Let families know that our emails are down. We’re not gonna be able to process tuition until the server’s back up.” And I was just able to talk to them and communicate with them and reassure them, and then also trust that they were gonna handle it.

I don’t want to say that was a unique feeling for me, but I truly was powerless being over there and not being able to help. And my team handled it very well. I think they obviously felt horrible reaching out to me while I was away, but we were able to really strike a balance of boundaries and being flexible and communicating with one another and reassuring one another, and it all worked out. It all smoothed out.

I will say it did take me almost a week, even after I got home, to get the email servers straightened out and us back on track. And some things are still a little wonky, but we’re getting there. It was just a great reminder that even when you have systems and processes in place, nothing is foolproof, and you have to be able to just accept that and lean on each other and ride it out.

You have to have patience. You have to have flexibility. You have to have compassion and grace and understanding. We are people, and systems don’t always work. Technology doesn’t always work, so you have to be comfortable with that.

Personal Reflections from the Trip

Some personal reflections I had on the trip. Number one, jet lag is real. Fatigue is real. I felt stretched in ways from having to problem-solve while away, and just the unfamiliarity of it. It was very emotional. There were so many emotions that I was navigating, trying to be brave and also be present and get the most out of this trip, even though things weren’t going exactly as I had envisioned. Balancing work and life during all of that, it felt heavy.

I felt stretched. But through the growth in the unpredictability, I also felt empowered and confident and blessed that I was able to see my son step up, not as a child, but as a young man, as a competent traveler. This travel deepened my relationship with him. It deepened my own self-awareness of my own blocks and my own insecurities. But also, like I said, it empowered me and showed me confidence in areas where I didn’t feel confident before.

Another thing that was kind of an interesting takeaway from this trip: I was so focused on building this incredible experience for him. This was a promise that I made to him. I wanted this trip to be so perfect for him. I didn’t want him stressed. I didn’t want him disappointed in anything. And he was so kind and so thoughtful.

He didn’t wanna complain when he was a little bit disappointed with our initial accommodations, and it wasn’t until we had a heart-to-heart conversation, like, “What is happening? I don’t think this is where we want to stay,” that we were able to work through that together. We just got so close and were able to have conversations with one another, like I said, more as peers, as people going through this experience together.

As much as I focused on creating this experience for him, I had this moment when we were in Pompeii. And Pompeii, by the way, is absolutely incredible. To say that I was awestruck is the understatement of a lifetime. It was absolutely incredible.

And so we’re standing there in Pompeii, and we’re going through this guided tour, and I’m looking around, and I had this moment where I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m just a girl. I’m just a girl living my life for the first time, experiencing this for the first time. Wow.” I was taking it all in, and it just hit me. It was like, “AliceAnne, do not spend so much effort creating an experience for someone else that you miss out on the experience for yourself.”

And in that moment, I made a decision that I was going to experience that trip. I was going to focus on the joy and the awe and the experience that I was getting for myself, not as a mom, not what I was providing for my son, but what I was experiencing for myself. And it totally changed the trip. I was able to relax and look for the joy and the awe and the amazement, and just the true beauty of it all, as I was experiencing it for the first time.

The Lesson I Brought Back to Leading Lady

The lesson I brought back, as I stepped back into work: I built Leading Lady and all of the resources for our members. I’ve carefully curated it. I want that perfect experience for the people that come into the Leading Lady ecosystem. And I’m gonna do a separate podcast episode next week about the Leading Lady ecosystem.

But that revelation was so clear and loud for me, about not building something for someone else without experiencing it yourself. And I’ve been searching. I’ve been searching for joy and awe and wonder and beauty in my business, just to be vulnerable in that, you know? And I realized that I was focused so much on creating the perfect experience for others that I wasn’t stopping to experience Leading Lady myself.

And it just gave me this renewed passion. So I’m gonna go into that in next week’s episode, and I hope that you tune into that to hear more about the Leading Lady ecosystem, what I’ve created, and how I am committing to experience that. Hopefully, through my own experiences, it will enhance the greater experience for all of our members.

So many powerful lessons and reflections from this trip. I want to encourage you, the listeners, to embrace imperfection, stay adaptable, and cherish your meaningful moments. And those meaningful moments might be the smallest moments that you don’t even realize are happening.

I’m really thankful. Travel is a luxury, and I don’t take that lightly. So I’m not complaining about things not being up to my standard or anything like that. I really hope that that’s not the takeaway. But if you’ve ever planned a big trip like that, you know that it takes a lot of time and it costs a lot of money, especially if it’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip. You have expectations and a vision of how it’s going to go.

And even with those bumps, I think the beauty in this is that I was able to do this with my son, and I was able to see so many wonderful things about him and learn some pretty empowering things about myself. And it was just a great reminder that it’s my first time here too. I don’t wanna miss out on those experiences that I get to partake in.

So I hope this was helpful. If you have had an experience like this, please shoot me an email. I do read and respond to every message, and I’d love to hear from you about a time that you had to adapt, or when you’ve learned some lessons about yourself, or when you’ve had a meaningful moment that you just really cherish. I’d love to hear from you.

So tune in next week to learn more about the Leading Lady ecosystem. And until next time, take the lead.

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