Welcome back to Philip James Travel!
I am Zoomed out! All told last week, I spent almost 40 hours week on the Zoom platform attending my host agency’s annual conference along, with a few other meetings and presentations that also utilized Zoom. Instead of meeting in-person at the LeBlanc Resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, as we were originally meant to, roughly 175 fellow travel advisors from Gifted Travel Network and 33 preferred vendor partners met together in general sessions, breakout classes, vendor lounges and cocktail parties… all virtually.
In addition to a wealth of destination and travel product information, the takeaways from this conference were loud and clear. "Attention is Invitation," and "what you Resist, Persists." To boil it down: spending too much of our time and energy focusing on problem-solving and fixing what’s broken, simply invites more of it and gets us mired in negativity.
Simplistically, to overcome this we need to draw our attention instead to the good we see and invite a continuum of positive things to direct a positive outlook and reality. It’s such a brighter perspective and a much happier place to be!
Putting this into a travel mindset, a good place to start is to not look back at the doom and gloom of the past, but rather to look ahead, and specifically to a time and a destination that will bring you joy.
During one of the keynote sessions, a bow and arrow illustration was used to help bring some perspective as to where we find ourselves right now. The bowstring has to be drawn back before the arrow can be propelled forward. This gives me hope in these days of being pulled backward, knowing that soon, we’ll be released and we’ll go fast and far.
Lastly, another of my takeaways from the conference was that I hope never to spend an entire workweek on Zoom ever again! Not that it’s not a good platform – it was excellent -- it allowed us a wonderful opportunity to meet and learn and chat as a community, but please! I’m ready to get together in an actual conference room in-person with friends and colleagues and to make human connections the old-fashioned way. I’m looking ahead toward next year’s conference; and anywhere (but Zoom) is fine with me!
Destination Inspiration: Turkey
Travel Tip: Virtuoso has just refreshed its website and by extension its booking engine. Have a look here when you’re interested in hotels, cruises, and destinations. There’s a wealth of information, offers and opportunities that you can either do yourself or give me a call.
Philip James Travel thanks wishes everyone safekeeping as we await the arrival of “Zeta” in Louisiana and Mississippi. And as we come out on the other side of this storm and this hurricane season, Look Ahead to all the good that is in store for you. Drop a comment when you’re able to let us know you’re safe and well.
-Philip
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882 Essayist, Poet and Philosopher
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