2 Follow Your Bliss: Jamie Gominger, Lotus Compass

This podcast is brought to you by Travel Beyond the Obvious, where we train travel planners to turn their locale knowledge into money. You can watch 3-minute samples from any of our courses for free on our site.
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In this episode Madeline interviews Spain destination expert and TBO graduate Jamie Gominger who is in the process of launching Lotus Compass, her own travel planning business offering coaching and trip planning for "conscious travel" to Spain. 

Mentioned in this podcast
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Lotus Compass
To contact Jamie about planning a trip to Spain, go to lotuscompass.com.

Euro Travel Coach
To contact Betsy Ball about European trips, go to eurotravelcoach.com.

Italy Beyond the Obvious - Italy trips planned to perfection
italybeyondtheobvious.com

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If you're thinking about starting your own travel planning business, or want Madeline to help you plan a bucket-list Italian holiday, you can schedule a free consultation here:
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Transcript

spk_0:   0:12
Thanks for listening to the  Travel Business Owners Podcast. We really appreciate your support. You can find links to anything we mentioned during the podcast in the notes below and we've also linked our company, Travel Beyond the Obvious as well. We an eight-lesson  course on how to start and build your own travel business with free samples from every lesson so you can see what they're like. And finally, please, if you liked this podcast, subscribe to our channel and give us feedback below about other topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes. Remember, our only mission is to make business owners like you wildly successful. Thank you again for listening. Today I'm going go talk to Jamie Graham, the founder of Lotus Compass. Hi, Jamie.

spk_1:   1:07
Hi, Madeleine.Thanks for having me.

spk_0:   1:10
Oh, it's so great to have you on the podcast. You are our second guest. I'm excited to have you and so glad that you made the time. I'd love to talk to you today about your travel business and how you got started. What you're doing now. Some of the challenges you've had and maybe you'll tell us about your actual business, and then we'll wrap up with some advice, and hopefully we can fit in some fun travel stories that you've had. Why don't you start with your background, tell us about yourself and how you ended up getting into this travel space?

spk_1:   1:51
It all started when I was in college, I was studying public relations and Spanish. And so I was double majoring there and with the Spanish degree. I was able to study abroad, which I think for a lot of people my age, which in the mid twenties, remembering those study abroad times and really trying to find a way to keep traveling again. And so I traveled abroad in Spain and Costa Rica and all over Europe. That was such a beautiful time in my life. And I really grew as a person and learned so much, and from there after college, I was left with the question. Okay, what do I do now? Quite randomly I was just I decided to start working in Congress in politics. It was totally the opposite of what I was expecting? I just I didn't really know much about politics, but I thought Okay, how hard could it be? I want to give it a try, I want to move to a new place. So I moved to  D. C. and I was working in Congress. Kind of the the bottom of the totem pole. And I absolutely hated it. And it's one of those things where you have to learn what you don't like until you can learn what you like. I put up in my little grey cubicle a picture of Spain. And I said to myself, I'm gonna move there one day after this. I'm going there. I don't care how. And I kept going to work every day for about a year. The job, I just kept with it, But in the meantime, I applied for this position with the Spanish government. It's the North American language and culture assistant, which is just a long title for basically like us. You know, an English teacher and culture American culture teacher. So I I got the job, And basically, the Spanish government puts you wherever they want. You know, they just kind of place you somewhere.

spk_0:   4:00
In Spain?  

spk_0:   4:01
Yeah, in Spain. And I was hoping to get Andalusia because I studied abroad in Granada, and I loved it. There are, um, and turns out I got Ibisa, You know, the island on the Mediterranean coast, or it's just the party island. And I was so disappointed. 

spk_0:   4:21
Oh my gosh. So many people would be thrilled to be there.

spk_1:   4:24
I was just like, I want real culture. I want the Spanish culture, not just the British people. And the Germans, Ibisa has such a reputation in Europe. So I was disappointed, but I was also super determined to live in Spain. And I said, I'm going anyway, So I packed my bags and I just moved to Ibisa. I didn't know where I was gonna live. I just kind of figured it out along the way. It's funny, because during the off season on that island, there's so much there for the locals and the culture there, the Ibicencan culture. They speak Catalan and Ibicencan there. I learned a lot about what it's like on a small island in Spain. The time that I was there, people from my home from you know, my family, distant relatives kind of like your story with Italy Beyond the Obvious. They were always asking me "Hey, can you plan this trip for me?" or "What should I do while I'm in Spain?" and I got to travel so much during that time because the craziest part was the job was only 12 hours of work a week.

spk_0:   5:40
Amazing, could you live on that.

spk_1:   5:43
I also taught some English classes on the side, some private English classes. And I got to meet a lot of the locals. So from that I learned marketing and social media management, so I was doing some of that work as well. It all worked out in the end. It was a beautiful three years in Spain. I knew that I wanted to make something of the travel part. I knew I loved that part and showing people the way during my time in Ibisa. I also learned about meditation. I learned about Buddhism and I got into ashanga, which is a group of Buddhist practitioners where we practiced meditation together and talked about the deeper things in life. So those groups of friends that I made there I still am good friends with today and after Spain, I decided to live in some different communities where it was like Buddhist communities or holistic centers where I was learning more and more about mindfulness and meditation. 

spk_0:   6:59
Were around for those around Spain Or did you go other places?

spk_1:   7:04
It was back to the U. S. I was in Colorado for a little while and now in California, so just kind of traveling and learning and growing along the way.

spk_0:   7:17
What a transformative experience like being on that island. But then also the spiritual and the relationships and the culture and the bonding, it just sounds like a amazing growth time of growth.

spk_1:   7:31
Oh, yes, definitely.  

spk_0:   7:33
So, meanwhile, you're the go to person. So you're the person who everybody's like "You've been in Spain for three years. Where should I go? What should I do? Where should they go? What should I do?" Is that what happened?

spk_1:   7:42
That's definitely what happened. I saw that a lot of people were in Spain for like one week, and they wanted to see it all. And I was just like, That's not how you do it. So I kind of took ownership of their trip and coached them through. "Hey, look, if you really want to see Spain in a way that's not exhausting and just overwhelming, here's the way to do it." And I started to show people "This is what you really want to do, and this is how you want to do it." And a lot of times those trips were more meaningful. That's what I want to do is help people to travel in a more meaningful way, not just to see the sights, you know,

spk_0:   8:25
Absolutely. So then you decided to start a travel business, or was there another? When was the day where you said...

spk_1:   8:33
Yeah, this is a funny part because I don't think you know this story, but it's funny. I was kind of desperately searching the Internet, asking, "Is this a job like, can I do this?" And, um, I just searched "european travel coach" and I found Euro Travel Coach, which is Betsy who was the first guest on the podcast. And I had reached out to her through email, and I asked, "Hi, I want to do what you do. How could I do this?" And she was really kind and going to showed me the travel beyond the obvious course. And I was like, "What? This is a thing?" I was so excited and relieved. Then I started to just flirt with the idea from there I looked at the classes and I was like, "OK, so this is a thing." And I signed up for the classes, and from there I was just like, you know what? I could do this, this is a thing that I really want and it constantly keeps coming back to me every time that I really get quiet within myself. This is what I want to do and I just decided to listen to it.

spk_0:   9:47
I love that I like also I'm all about get quiet and listen. You know, a big part of Travel Beyond the Obvious for me is the mission. I am totally about tune into the mission. And how can I help? And how can I spread the word? And I love it when you said "you can totally do this" you can. But then I love that you go back to that when you get quiet and you go inside and say "This is what I want to do. 

spk_1:   10:21
And another thing that helped me during that time was journaling, which I have always been a pretty average journaller and I'm always have my travel journal on writing and putting pictures of things and then I journal about it all the time, and was like How can I do this? Is this possible? And it's evolved over the years because it started when I was in Spain giving advice all the time to my friends. And it's kind of grown from just a blog because I started a blog in Ibisa about eight years ago. I just started this blog and continued and continued, and now it's grown into okay, not just a blog, but the travel planning and the travel coaching and what services can offer, and why do I want to bring this into the world? Not just "Oh, I wanna make money." What is the real purpose? What do I want to bring to the world, especially right now, when we're having so much space and time to actually think about those things. 

spk_0:   11:23
I'd love for you to talk about the services your business offers. And the structure, and what's working? What's exciting for you? First, though, I wanted to ask you about the name. How did you decide on Lotus Compass? It's a very zen and spiritual name, I think.

spk_1:   11:44
The lotus part is in a lot of Eastern traditions. The lotus is a symbol of transformation and enlightenment. And so I was like, Well, that's cool, of course, I want that to be brought into it. And also the compass, which I found it, that you are your own guide in this whole thing. My goal is for people to be able to trust themselves enough to be their own compass. So Lotus Compass brings that idea of you finding your own way in your own transformation and enlightenment. So I just love the name I thought about it for so long, you know, "Oh, I want to be this or that." And it just came to me one day when I was asking my friends what they thought I should be or what my name should be. And then I said, "No, don't talk. I have it." It just came. So I just stayed with that. And I really like the name.

spk_0:   12:45
Fantastic. And anyone listening to this go look at lotuscompass.com. I don't know if you're going to keep the image that's there right now, but the one that's up now is breathtaking. Is that taken at Big Sur?

spk_1:   13:08
Yes, my partner's a photographer. So that's right by our house in Big Sur.  

spk_0:   13:08
Oh, my goodness, it's amazing. So tell us about the business. So are you going to focus on Spain? What's the structure and what are the services that you're offering?

spk_1:   0:00
Right now I'm working on the business structure and the website, so I'm starting out with all these big things right now. I've decided that with the pandemic, I'm going to do three different parts of my company. The first part is first to create the website and have the blog as kind of a community of people of travelers who all share this conscious traveling, this desire to travel in a meaningful way and have an eco travel store. So I'll have the store there, it's an online store, and then next I"ll offer online courses for the time being. What does it mean to be a conscious traveler? How can you travel more responsibly? And that way the mission reaches more people. In that way, I can really bring more consciousness to travel, not just Spain, not just a certain place. I feel like once people start traveling more, which I'm hoping will be soon as I'm rolling out the website, I want to focus then on Spain travel, and specifically within Spain travel is the Camino de Santiago, which for those  who don't know what the Camino is, it's a 500-mile spiritual pilgrimage through Spain. It's an incredible thing to do if you're looking to grow and learn through your travel, and it's very slow travel cause you're walking through the country. So I'll focus on that with travel planning and coaching as the main part of the business.I'd love to ask you about that in a second. Tell me a little bit more about conscious travel and what that means to you. And maybe you have a couple of ideas or tips for people who want to become more conscious travellers.

spk_0:   0:00
I'd love to ask you about that in a second. Tell me a little bit more about conscious travel and what that means to you. And maybe if you have a couple ideas or tips for people who want to become more conscious travelers.

spk_1:   16:39
Conscious traveling is bringing awareness to the way that you travel. So what does that mean when you're just going on a trip? It means that you focus on your own self growth and you ask those bigger questions to yourself in personal inquiries. And then the other aspect is the culture. Bringing in awareness of how you're affecting the culture and the environment that you're visiting. That could be learning the language before you go or not visiting the crowded places that are usually super packed with tourists and helping local economies by shopping locally, that kind of thing. And then the third aspect is the more environmental side of it, which is really paying attention to the wildlife. And if you're hiking, you're not going off the trail and things like that. So that's the kind of three pillars of conscious traveling

spk_0:   16:40
I find I've learned so much about myself traveling because it's things that, I don't about you, I found I do things the same way for years and years and years, and then you get somewhere else, and it's like, Oh! A silly example, I guess is, well I don't if this is a silly example, in the UK there some crosswalks where all the cars stop and all the pedestrians cross. And so the whole square in the middle of the street is open and you can cross diagonally, you could go zigzag, you can go straight across the street. So it's like a big piazza is a big square that's just open and all the pedestrians cross to whichever street they need to cross to. And the first time I saw that I thought, Oh, that makes so much sense, even though that had never occurred to me. And that's a small example. But those kind of things happen all the time when you're traveling and it makes you reflect, "Well, how do I do things and why do I do things that way? And is there a better way of doing things? And is this better than the way I do?"And they might have something to teach me, and that whole mentality is so valuable.

spk_1:   17:54
Totally, and that's  the point, to ask yourself questions leave those habitual patterns of the way you do things so that you can open your mind to different ways. And then when you open your mind to different ways of being and living, then you can be more accepting. And that's the whole point is to be more compassionate, more accepting to everyone.

spk_0:   18:15
And we pulled pulled down the us versus them, right? Exactly. Oh, I love that. So do you want to talk about your services? Are you still figuring those out or ...?

spk_1:   18:29
Well, I'm hoping to offer the travel, planning and coaching with more more focus on the travel coaching. I want to push people to the coaching because during the coaching sessions, I'll be able to focus one on one with a person and allow them to kind of talk through. I want the coaching to be more of a mental as well as where you're going, what you're doing, how you're going to do it. So what are the goals, what are the intentions of your trip, especially if it's a personal growth kind of trip? So that's what I'm hoping to offer? I'm still working out the details on that one for sure.

spk_0:   19:11
Okay, well, I'm excited to see as you work through this, how this all comes together.

spk_1:   19:16
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot.

spk_0:   19:18
Yeah, it is. It's a lot. But now, I mean, honestly, it's a tough time right now, but this is an unexpected gift that we can take advantage of. So tell us about some of the challenges you've encountered along the way. You've come quite a ways from from zero and you're on your path right now. You're building your business right now. Tell me about a few of the challenges that you've encountered.

spk_1:   19:47
I think the first one  that comes to mind is patience, like what you've been saying. There's there's a lot of challenges right now, and there's also a lot of opportunity. So I'm seeing the opportunity and this is the time. I want to create it all. And I want it to be functioning and going and have clients and everything, and it's just not happening like that right now. I have to really slow down and think things through, create blog posts, create the website and it just takes a lot of patience right now. And that's a bummer whenever there's so much momentum behind the creativity in ideas and all the inspiration that's coming up,

spk_0:   20:30
Yes, that can be a challenge. And especially, it's not like when you open a brick and mortar store. You know, when you have an online business, as you say, like you create the block poster, you write the contents or whatever and you click, publish and then, nothing happens, you know. It's not like you opened your doors on the main street with balloons and and a grand opening sign. Nobody notices until Google indexes your content which takes weeks.

spk_1:   21:09
It's a while, yeah.

spk_0:   21:09
You do have to be patient, and you have to keep kind of plodding along consistently and somehow keep that motivation going to just keep moving forward.

spk_1:   22:16
The patience piece when I'm  explaining what I'm doing to people, because that's the big one. I'm sure you've seen that a lot too. It's just like, Okay, I'm not doing that exactly. But thanks for reaching out. And it's just trying to to manage that as well, has been kind of difficult, because I have a lot of distant friends and relatives or whatever, who ask "Hey, can you just give me advice for this day?" And I'm like, "Oh, thank you so much. I don't want to be a jerk, but let's see how we.." I don't know how to really word that one.

spk_0:   22:16
That was one of my initial challenges too. I was the go-to person for free Italy advice. And it's not that I don't give free Italy advice. It's that I I respond to "just give me a few tips for Rome" with "Well, I have 17 questions for you before I can give you any tips" I could just tell you to go see the Coliseum, but that's not really the point.

spk_1:   0:00
  It's not the thing, yeah.

spk_0:   22:16
It's not the point of giving a personalized recommendation for a specific traveler. And as you'll find too, are you on Lesson 2?

spk_1:   22:31
Yeah, I'm a lesson 2 right now. I'm thinking I might go to lesson four, which is a  the 5-step process, because lesson 3 is closing the deal, I want to learn the process since we don't have so many people jumping to travel right now, so I think that's what my next step will be on that.

spk_0:   22:54
I think as you work through the exercises, and as you do more and more work just repeating the messaging, like just back to your point about explaining to people what you do, your message will get tighter and tighter and tighter. So I think that just comes with practice and with time and and with the the person that says to you. "Oh, so you do this?" and you say, "Oh, I can see why you think that based on what I said." So now I'm gonna tweak my message to make it more specific, and then you'll test that on a few people. So it'll come the more you talk about it the more you work with it, the more you think about it, the tighter it will be, the easier it'll be.

spk_1:   23:59
It's just trying it out again and again and seeing what works.

spk_0:   23:59
Yeah, and just keep working on it one step at a time. Do you have any advice for anyone who might have gotten the travel bug? Might be thinking that this job sounds amazing, that they don't know if they can do it. Do you have any advice for someone who might be thinking about starting a travel business.

spk_1:   24:00
Yeah! I say, like Joseph Campbell, he's one of my favorite writers, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, because there will be doors that open when you follow your bliss. I think it's just about following whatever feels right and going on for it. And being curious, I think that's the main  thread in all this for me is to be curious about it. Not too strict like I need to get this right. Whenever I'm working and my partner sees me really focused on something, he says, "Are you having fun." And I say, "Oh, yeah, right. Okay. Yeah." Playfulness. I try to remember that. So I think all of that is really important in the process in the beginning, especially when everything is so new and unknown. We're doing this because we love it, you know? Yes. So that's my advice.

spk_0:   24:56
And I think that's such a good point about the bliss and the fun and loving it. Everyone who's in this community, who's in the Travel Beyond the Obvious community and this is when I started Italy beyond the obvious like you, I was the go to person. We're doing it because we love it. And I tell people, you know, if you want to make a million dollars you're in the wrong business. We're all in this for the mission and the passion and the love and changing people's lives and and helping people travel better.

spk_1:   25:32
Yeah, it's the dream job. So just having that ,remembering that throughout and making it fun because it's a perspective, it's the change in perspective where it's work versus fun and just being creative with it all. It's really helpful for me.

spk_0:   25:51
Well, in your perspective is so valuable. You know, um, you have a very unique background. You have the whole mindfulness meditation, spiritual piece of it and conscious travel piece of it as well. And so even though we have other Spain participants in our travel course, everybody has a different background and that you're going to connect with the customers that resonate with your background. And I think this field has such a huge opportunity for growth because everybody brings their own unique background to the table.

spk_1:   26:28
Yeah, it's really cool to see all of the different specialties that everyone has and what they're passionate about and how it grows into what their offer. That is a really cool part to see in the community.

spk_0:   26:40
Yeah, Yeah, it's really a job for, what is that saying? "Do what you are" something like that. Well, Jaime, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time. It's been great talking to you.

spk_1:   27:05
Yeah, it's lovely. Thanks for having me.for having me.

spk_0:   27:05
So tell us where people can find you online for anyone who might want to connect, tell us your social media, where are you?

spk_1:   0:00
 I'm on pretty much all those on Lotuscompass, so if you look on Facebook you can look up "lotus compass", and Instagram as well, Twitter, LinkedIn, and lotuscompass.com, the web site is in the works, hopefully it's out by the time everybody is listening to this.

spk_0:   0:00
Fabulous - I'm excited to continue to follow your journey.  

spk_1:   0:00
  Yeah, thank you so much.

spk_0:   27:06
Thanks for listening to the  Travel Business Owners Podcast. We really appreciate your support. You can find links to anything we mentioned during the podcast in the notes below and we've also linked our company, Travel Beyond the Obvious as well. We an eight-lesson  course on how to start and build your own travel business with free samples from every lesson so you can see what they're like. And finally, please, if you liked this podcast, subscribe to our channel and give us feedback below about other topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes. Remember, our only mission is to make business owners like you wildly successful. Thank you again for listening.