Problem is, I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier when it comes to business--obviously, since the business didn't altogether succeed. So coming up with 10 nuggets of business wisdom presents a challenge for me. Therefore, I'll pad the list out with whatever else the hell I learned about life or travel or writing or myself in the year 2013. And if I still come up short, I'll throw in lessons learned from the past several years if I have to. You may even find a few odds and ends like the names of Walt Disney's Seven Dwarves or Santa's reindeer on this list--anything to get those golden digits of 1 and 0 nestled close, side by side.
For lack of a better list name, here are Ten Things I Think I Know In 2013:
1. You gotta make money to make money. Some time ago when I was still kicking around the idea of starting up a women-only tour business, a friend encouraged me to go for it by repeating the old adage: You gotta spend money to make money. That was actually the first time I ever heard that saying. But when I Google it, I see it's a pretty common piece of business advice. To be honest, after a few years of trying to run my own business, I still don't know what the saying means or if it's true. What I do know is true though is that, well, if you're not making money but you're still spending it, you're just losing it is all. Meaning, there's really no "catching up" curve in owning a business. If you start a business and you don't find yourself making even a small profit or breaking even from the get-go, you'll never catch up. You'll just keep falling into debt--slowly or quickly, it doesn't really matter. Debt is debt--at least to bottom-level, 99%-ers like me it is. People who don't worry about money are people who never had to, because they've always had it. I am not one of those people.
I loved setting up Wayfaring Women Tours. I loved the fact that I was chasing my dream. If I didn't, I wouldn't have given the business a chance for the length of time I did, even as I was losing money. But I had to face reality. You gotta make money to make money. I wasn't making money. I was losing it. And I'm over 40 now, with no house, no car or vehicle, no assets, no insurance, no spouse or partner, no children. Nothing left to lose, true, but nothing to help catch me if I keep falling. I needed to get out before falling into a deeper financial hole. I need to think about the future and make sure that future includes at least a roof over my head and a pair of hole-less shoes on my feet.
2. You got to know when to fold 'em. To quote that great late-20th-century American philosopher Kenny Rogers: You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.
If what I wrote above in Lesson #1 doesn't make sense, maybe Dr. Rogers's classic treatise "The Gambler" can serve to clarify. If this business venture has taught me anything, it's when to fold' em. And now, like my namesake in that old '60s song, I am walking away.
The consolation prize is knowing that I tried, and by trying I proved myself a true risk-taker, a gambler. All my life I wanted to be a gambler. Ever since I was a young girl. I have no idea where, how, or why that dream began in the heart of an ordinary little girl such as I was, but the root of it probably lies in coming home from school one day and seeing this:
3. Women who follow their dreams oppress men. Apparently. When I first got the idea to start a travel company that organizes small group tours for women, the last thing I thought it would do would be to drum up any controversy. It's not like I thought I was doing something really revolutionary, considering the growing number of other women-only tour groups and companies out there (as well as other specialty tour companies targeting strictly seniors or families or LGBT people or paraplegics or vegetarians or African Americans, and so on). And the words "a human fail" certainly didn't come to my mind about my business plans at any point.
But those last words are what some guy I was friends with in high school called my company and idea on his Facebook profile one day, not long after I officially opened up shop. He apparently decided that my company was discriminating against men, and he concocted some kind of story suggesting he had been ejected from my establishment (even though I worked out of my home--I never had a storefront or anything beyond a website for my business) because he was male. Never mind that he never even asked me if he could join up for one of my tours (if he had, I would have immediately put together one for mixed groups that he could join, so eager was I to start leading tours and doing business). In fact, until he threw his bizarre, self-pitying, completely-out-of-nowhere little fit on Facebook, I didn't even know he was aware of me starting a business. (I had been sharing the news like crazy on Facebook and by email and every way I knew how, but not everyone I knew seemed to be paying attention or expressing interest. Michael D.--yes, I am naming and shaming--never said a peep. Not one word showing awareness, much less asking if he could join a tour or why I was catering just to women.) Meanwhile, I never had a chance to ask this oh-so-noble fighter for freedom and aspiring men's rights activist why he suddenly chose to take offense at a woman's attempt to go into business for herself and encourage other women to travel, much less make up a story and smear me online--since he immediately unfriended me after crafting his lie, giving me no chance to refute him in front of his other Facebook friends.
His lie upset me. Along with being a lie that had the potential to damage my very new business, his complaint about discrimination is completely bogus. I've already written in a previous post about the numerous reasons a woman would opt for a women-only tour. Every reason I listed--from unique safety concerns to a simple desire for "sisterhood" time--is valid, and not a one has anything remotely to do with discrimination against men. And sorry men's rights dudes, but it's women who bear the brunt of gender discrimination on this planet--not the other way around. If you actually believe otherwise, you are an astonishingly ignorant and naive person, and probably an outright misogynist and classic gaslighter. I have no idea which category of these, if any, my former high school/Facebook friend falls into. Actually, I know exactly which category. It's the one that rhymes with Miley Cyrus's favorite dance move. But sadly, apparently he's not the only myopic fool who's tried to get attention with the cry of "reverse sexism" at women-only businesses. He's not even the only guy who's struck a blow for freedom fighting the tyranny that is women's tour companies. (See here, too.)
After my own experiences, not just with my business but as woman in this world, I honestly think what it comes down to is that there are still people out there who cannot stand to see women doing things for themselves, without the aid or input of men. Likewise, there are still people who cannot stand when the focus is taken off men for a change and placed on women. Hence, women business owners still get hassled for shit that male business owners never have to deal with. Women's achievements and accomplishments are still ignored. Women are still written out of history. Women are still silenced or smeared or threatened for speaking up. Women are still paid less for equal work around the world. Women are still told what's good for them even if "what's good for them" is actually decidedly bad, dangerous, discriminatory, or deadly. Women are still discouraged from doing things their own way or a new way, rather than the way men have done for years (and despite men's long history of messing everything up, to be frank about it). Women are still assumed to be experts at only "womanish" things like baby-making, child-rearing, shopping, fashion, dieting, and such--further, those pursuits and interests in themselves are often dismissed as unworthy fluff for investigation or serious discussion because of their association with women. Indeed, apart from the jerk on Facebook, I had a few sexist reactions from other people to my business idea--assumptions that I was leading "shopping tours" or "Botox and makeup tours" and jokes about "bored housewives" or crude comments about gay women, for example. Thankfully, most of these reactions were very few (and yes, all but one of them came from men--the sole woman was a former acquaintance in Ireland). Most men I know and met have been very supportive and encouraging throughout my whole experience of starting and running a business. After the Facebook incident, a couple men even flat out told me they fully support my business and that they were proud of me. I'll end this number on the list with a big thank you to those men. Your support helped keep me going. Men like you are the genuine gents and fair players of this world. You are also true friends. Thank you for being born.
4. When you got it, you got it. And I got it good. Get your minds out of the gutter, people. "It" means wanderlust here. One of the most difficult things about shutting down Wayfaring Women has been coming to terms with the likely loss of independence and freedom this will cause. Running my own business not only meant that I got to call the shots, it also meant I had the freedom to decide where the shots were called. I could work out of my home in Illinois or out of a hotel in Ireland. I could work in bed, on a bus, on the road, in the air, over the rainbow...
People who start travel businesses and travel blogs are people who love to travel. They're people who are trying to align their hearts and dreams with the practicalities of life. Staying in one place all the time, or even most or part of the time, doesn't make them happy. It just makes them feel trapped. I admit it is hard to reckon myself to a future where I have to stay in one place all the time, except for maybe 10 to 14 days out of the year when I'm granted vacation time, just to make ends meet. For the sake of my own happiness, sense of fulfillment, and even mental health, I'm hoping for a more flexible future, one that still gives me the chance to see all the places I'd like to see in the world. Which leads me to #5...
5. It's not a small world after all. It's a very big one. With lots of worthwhile places to go and visit. And the more you see of the world, the more you want to see more. Traveling grows from checking off places on a list to adding places on a list. A list that never ends--probably because the world never ends. It's a globe after all, a big circle. Even if you run out of places on the earth to see, there are all the places inside it and all the places beyond it. Travel is a drug, people. Travelers will always find a way, in the true sense of the word. Even death doesn't stop the desire for journeys, since nearly all of human wishes about the afterlife are really more expressed yearnings to travel, to move on, to see it all, to keep exploring and encountering, to visit or revisit, to be anywhere but here or everywhere at once.
6. South Africa. This is one of the places at the top of my list of where I really want to go.
7. Norway. This is another one.
8. Grand Canyon. Another one. Though I've already been here once before. I'd like to go again anyway, and this time walk all the way down into the canyon and spend a couple nights at the ranch at the bottom before walking up. The last time I went to the Grand Canyon was just for the day. I was with a small group of foreign men (believe me, being the only female and only American wasn't my plan). Our leader walked us down part of the way into the canyon, but I found myself petrified by the drop-offs all the way to the bottom on the side of the path. I only went a short way down before turning back and walking back up. I regret that fear. That was in 2005. (I think). I've made it one of my goals to get back to the canyon and overcome the fear that kept me from enjoying the place more the last time around. I hope you see a blog post sooner than later about this goal.
9. Moving on is necessary for survival. This is a personal one. I'm not sure if I'll do a very good job of explaining it. I may even sabotage it out of privacy or self-doubt.
I said above that's it a great big world...with lots of places to run to (to quote Tom Petty, on the subject of us American girls--it seems I'm all about wisdom from songwriters in this post, aren't I?). And I have so many more places I'd love to run to someday than the few I've listed here. A couple (like the Grand Canyon and Mexico) are ones I'd like to revisit. But most are places I've never been to before.
Here's where it gets personal. Years ago I ran from a place I really loved because someone was treating me badly there. It took me years to work up the courage to go back to that place. It took more years yet to finally face the person who hurt me. I still haven't come to terms with it all, been able to close it all up in a neat bow or a smooth circle signifying healing or anything like that. But the whole experience has taught me two things, I think.
First, the bad experience long ago that led me to run away probably helped me in learning to walk away in later situations. Meaning it helped me to put some things in perspective. I could really regret starting a business, losing some money, and then closing up shop. For sure, I do wish it went better. And the day I made the last decision, I was sad. But then I think about the longer course of things, other disappointments I've had and such, and I know surely that if I was able to run away from that and survive, then I can walk away from this and survive again. (Can you survive again? Or would you say "survive some more"? Inform me, friends.) I won't lie and pretend that I've always managed to walk away with dignity, or that I always will in the future. But it's enough to know you have the capability to move on, and to trust there's enough space in the world for doing just that.
The second thing is that I think I can cross a certain place off my list of ones to visit or revisit in the years to come. Namely, the place I ran away from years ago. I think I need to. For awhile at least. This one place occupied a lot of attention in my mind for a very long time. It will always occupy a big space in my heart--as will many of the friends I know there. But there are other places in the world that need my attention--or maybe it's me who needs those places. Citizen of the world, as they say. That's me.
10. This is me too. Here's that Tom Petty song I was talking about. I can't think of another item to add to and round out this list. And Tom Petty is always a sure bet for closing out stuff. Especially "American Girl." Here's to all the American girls traveling the world in 2014. Take it easy, baby.
