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Case Study: Janette Gorney

We're going to go to jeanette gorney from bali oh my gosh, I can't wait to see like where she is but she is a brand new spiritual travel writer at travel in light dot com and janet really created a writing habit while we work together which was purely for placing so jenny you almost like you could have done the intro into this segment because she was given the homework assignment to like just write one thing every week as if you had a blogger's if you're going to submit it whatever you want whatever you have to say it's not forests specific purpose it's not for a business it's just what do you have in you that you want to share this week and she got into this habit of writing a story an article put like whatever every week and that led her teo travel in light dot com and she's bringing together now her passions for I talked about her yesterday joanne I'm looking right at you because it's so similar to what you talked about spirituality, travel, photography and writing so another you he...

ar this I'm here yeah, but it's night time there I forgot. Yeah that's what I am it's one am you were such a rock star I love you I thought it was like ten pm or nine pm or something reasonable it's okay, I think we just did the math a little wrong, maybe from the east coast, but from the west coast. It's yeah, were you never a difference? I love it. And you were like, brant, you're brand new to this trip like you've just started on this big trip last week, right? Yeah, I'm about, um, about two weeks in. Okay, so tell just give us a brief overview of, like, where you are and what you're doing for yourself right now. Right now, I'm in bali and I've been here for about seven days, but it started, um, about a week prior, but this this we're amenable a retreat. So I'm really been doing a lot of yoga and meditation, and so that's been a special treat for me in this most beautiful place s so excited. Okay, so we want to talk about you're here on a segment called the importance of play and really played to you meant writing, so you came to me like so many other clients with that inner voice saying, I want to be a writer I want to write, I want to write, but you weren't letting yourself right, so you could could you talk about how you finally gave yourself permission toe, listen to that voice and start playing by writing uh well, I remember I remember specifically a conversation you and I had together and I knew that if I was gonna make myself a writer I had to begin writing um so I remember we did uh I had set out initially just one I had just had to write one essay per week and then just scheduling that times andi and I was listening before tuning in someone in your audience had mentioned making time and that was exactly what I had to do I had to schedule it into my into my weekly schedule and make sure I holed up and making my little private place and I wrote and you know, with you making sure that I got my assignment in er before I knew it I had this beautiful body of work that I could pull from and um gained more confidence as a writer and uh and it's fun and it continues to be fun and I'm lucky because what I love to dio is what I get to do s so how did that writing practice then lead you to create travel and light this new business that you're embarking on? Well, I was able to because well, two things that I love to dio is to write and to travel does that seem like a natural marriage to do both the traveling and the writing? I also do enjoy photography so I've been blending them all together to do this instead of just write about my experience of following my heart and yeah, that that was the birth of travel in light is just really I'm a message through through travel in life is to follow your heart and uh it's you want to do and see what happens when you're leading by example, right? I mean, look at this transformation that you had I know you left uh stable job and you left a long term relationship that wasn't suiting your needs anymore and like, oh my gosh, you were living like travel nomadic dream and being able to stay true to your own passions and what you really enjoy doing and what's important to you your own mission um so it's not only about you know, sometimes they hear about travel writing and I love I love the title you came up with for yourself it's spiritual travel writer so travel writing I think like, oh, you only have to go pick yourself tio voters or, you know, you write take pictures for national geographic or something like that, but you are able to really create your own kind of brand new business and evan flow with where you want teo, I don't want to use the word focus where you want to spend your time yeah yeah and it is it's something different I did recently go teo eh travel writers conference in san francisco yeah, and I learned a lot about because what I really wanted to see is the finished for me or is it isn't really travel writing that I want to do because, like, you know yourself, is all so new for me, and this is an experience as an experiment essentially is because what I do is more personal essay I more than like, you know, this is the best hotels, right? Right, a whole lot of that, but I do certainly incorporate that because I love teo and, you know, now I'm finding, like, great yoga studios and things that ending just incorporating everything I love and just writing about the experience, but it is more of a personal essay, more about the personal journey through travel, and so I had to find that there isn't a need for that, but, uh, it's so it's just it's all ellen development, you know this, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think even if you go to this travel conference in there telling you this isn't what we want for our publishing house for a publication, then we could start thinking of, well, is that what you want to be writing? Is that what you want to be telling people you want to do, and do you want to create that nish I mean, I know these look pray love I mean, that was that was travel writing from a personal perspective and so really interesting then you could kind of see how you wantto do it yeah yeah and there is a sixty percents eat, pray love there actually is a quite an interest in personal essay eso there certainly are avenues and publications for that onda also there's a there's an increased interest in the spirituality of it all s o it is kind of an evolving realm of travel writing so it is about me just being creative and finding out who wants to it read stories about it there's there are definitely publications like a far and different sort of unique uh didn't different publications that they're doing that but it's really just, you know, making the story, putting it out there and saying anyone bites because it's something it's a little it's still a little bit new? Um so really you're just embarking on this whole thing and I'm glad actually you brought up the conference because I remember you signed up for that pretty early on in our sessions and it was like six months away or something like that, so it was something that you knew you wanted to find out more information, but you also knew you didn't want to go there as like someone that is just saying, I'm just looking at this you wanted to have a car that you could give it to someone and says here's, where my writing lives here's where you could find out more about me and so you are phase one of this experiment was based around the deadline of the conference, which is a really great accountability goal, and then you were able t do your writing from a place of, like what I wantto what's going to fulfill me? What do I need to say and what I want to write about and what's going to be a good referee representation of the type of writer that I am. So when I go to this conference, someone goes to my website, I'm going to be proud of what's up there, yeah, yeah, it was really great too, because one of the pieces I'd actually written while working with you I submitted ahead of time, and with that piece, I was actually taken into one of their advanced courses, and I was actually able to work one on one with one of these old time nobody I knew what his name is, but once I got into that community realized he was. The who's who of the travel writing world out often to you know, the far off er you know brain for us and he was up in the trees with the people interviewed you know? He was like that guy the one that would you know, those old national geographics we see the crazy travel right of the second the trees that don't mean anything right? S o uh it was it was an extraordinary experience and I was able to take a piece that I have worked on and actually have it truly dissected by other travel writers and plus this guy in a very small, intimate forum so the work but the work paid off for the experience for sure van dad, that makes some some, you know, contacts yeah, yeah, well and I love the perspective now that you have that this is still an experiment, this is still an exploration she's still open as to where this is going to take her things aren't you're still so secure and who you are and what you love and where you want to be, but you're open to the other opportunities that are out there. So I know there's a fear that a lot of people have that once they start doing the things that they love doing as a business or as a career that they're going immediately it's gonna feel like work there not from like doing it. So is there anything specifically do in order to rape retain that sense of play? And now your business endeavors? Well, it's a lot like what you just said it's like really just maintaining flexibility and playfulness with it don't I mean really do your best to avoid telling yourself you're stuck in some thing? I, um you're brave enough to do this, you're brave enough to take the jump um to do what it is you love, so be brave enough to flex with it and grow with it. It's it's something that it'll expand a sze yu, as you kind of learn, is it's new and we make everything up as we go along really? If you think about it and this is something yes, so just just stay fresh I you know, I've been asking all the interviewees what their current self would tell their self like before they started working on this stuff and I have a feeling that's all is there anything else other than what you just said, which was over vig that you would tell your let's say summer of twenty thirteen self from your september of twenty fourteen self well, be brave, stay open, do it it's a new explorer experiment, yeah, and it's amazing and it just keeps getting better yeah, it really does it's just it's just having the freedom in it I'm gonna you're gonna be scared too sometimes I wake up like way doing, you know, every once in a while but it's reminding myself that what else is going to be doing? Really? Because you mean you know I shared it enough with you that it got to a point where I couldn't I could not do it you know, there was a I couldn't do it I couldn't not do it again but uh that's the matter that's the secret sauce, right? When you get to the place that you can't not do it yeah, jennifer I know you have a question. I was just wondering that if you had thought it all about doing reviews of, like, spiritually places, spaz yoga places in amazing locations and doing it from your perspective as an essay writer because to me I just think that that would totally draw people and I would be like, I want to go feel that there where is that? You know? Oh, that's great, you know it's funny that you ask that because during my journey, one of the first places I stopped on my way here to bali was into by and they are dude, I don't know if anybody if you've ever been there, but there's there very much into their social media marketing I mean it's amazing and they will come up and give you free drinks or don't treat not not and they just they really push it in a sense and they're like they're like will you give us a review? You know they're just kind of and I'll do they don't let like forcing you to do it if you don't want to but it really opened my eyes up to it again this is about staying open it what comes forward then I love that you brought this up because I wrote this review and it suddenly it's giving me more uh it's a visual like I'm getting people are seeing me you know simon and my friend who was traveling me at this time she was like, you know, this would be really great for you because I'm a writer I could make a great review and then uh you know when this was just on I think triple trip and I served by one of those but yeah that's a great I have just recently thought about that because just tell me where I am now in bali I'm in a boot and there's there is this awesome place for yoga that I could write for days about and so I have just recently considered that too and I guess that is part of that flexing and learning as we go along like where is they're a knish for this like where can I see people asking because people are searching that I want and spirituality is becoming more mainstream now you know more people doing yoga yoga is one of the fastest growing industries in the world now so yeah thank you for that yeah thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you in the morning oh my god I'm giving you love and hugs thank you for go find ann at travel and light travel e n l I g h t dot com she's on twitter and she's on facebook and again just like a lot of our other interviewees she's at the big beginning of this journey right? So if you jump on the traveling light bandwagon now you're going to say see what she does with all of this and where she lands quote unquote and and the journey and the peace of things so here's the play contract right unfortunately don't have time to do it for the audience but if someone in the audience in the break wants to go fill it out and take it home as a souvenir right the person who really is there someone that like really needs to be reminded of the playing that you know like you need teo you need help taking it seriously jenna probably ok which makes me not want to commit s o that play contract a big play contractor fell out during the break and you're gonna take it home with you and you're gonna put it up but this play contract is on tape to ninety four of your workbooks so everyone can fill it out I your name here do solemnly swear to spend no number of minutes each day, week or month playing in this case playing means doing something for myself for just my own pleasure it need not be productive or serve a greater purpose other than relaxing and or re energizing me this includes but is not inclusive to all the activities that you listed this goes beyond me time it is instrumental to my health happiness in pursuit of my dream career signed name and date so everyone needs to fill out that play contracts no way go you may play a high priority by comparing it to it's currently an unmissable thing for you, right? So if you know you're someone is gonna put it on the calendar and then not teo it or you're going to like talking yourself out of it, what is the thing that's an unmissable thing for you? So so for me I had to keep telling myself my playtime was just is important as my client sessions because not only would I never just not show up for my client sessions, I wouldn't even move them unless I absolutely had teo so making that connection for me just even mentally was really, really instrumental and giving myself that play time and that me time and this is a huge, huge, huge challenge for me personally when I started coaching back in two thousand seven, this is what I worked with my first coach on. So what is that for you? And what can you do too be accountable for ends? What do you guys writing down when you're from one person in the studio audience in our studio audience? I love saying that, right? I kind of feel like bob barker. Come on, I'm gonna have to say that at some point today. Jen, what do you write? Ok, so it's gonna have to do improv? Uh, bads and music rubber stamping, huh? On dh then I really do want to play with my photographs, and I've already taken, you know, and just took a different things, like patterns and backgrounds and like, you look at it in a way that I haven't usually looked great break in love it and we want to hear keep writing it in the chat uh, put it online at hashtag dream career live. We want to know about your excuses and about what you're gonna commits playing with, and hopefully you've reconciled that guilty feeling or that selfish feeling that comes with playing as a grown up