My life as a tour manager

#69 - My Life As A Tour Manager (EDITED)

Tue, Jun 04, 2024 7:05AM • 32:18

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

tour manager, trip, people, retreat, work, kilimanjaro, life, australia, charity, travel, challenge, tanzania, money, year, raised, talk, emma, bit, black dog institute, trekked

00:01

Do you want to live a life of freedom and adventure? Are you wanting more than the daily grind? Me too. Welcome to the Emma Lovell show, a place where we talk about living a life you love now, I'm your host, Emma Lovell, and my number one value is freedom. I've spent the last 14 years running a business and traveling the world. And now I take my husband and toddler along for the adventure to it's possible and I know you can create a life doing what you truly love as well. This podcast will inspire, motivate and encourage you to go after your dreams to create a life you love until you get now don't wait for a time and or someday in the future. I'll be sharing episodes weekly about how I harmonize business travel and self care. I'll also bring on incredible guests to share their journeys, wins the challenges and how they're creating a life they love. Let's jump in and get dreaming. This is a space for you to manifest a life you love.

01:03

I would like to acknowledge and recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this place now known as Australia. I am grateful for the continuing care of the land waterways and skies where I work live. Listen, learn and play. From here on you can bear country and from wherever you are listening, I pay my respects to the elders past and present.

01:26

Hello lovelies, and welcome to today's episode, I've been talking about my life and tour manager. Since I've been writing my book,

01:35

The Art of bleter, which is coming out on the 21st of August. And we'll share all the links in the show notes in case you're listening after the sales had started, and it would be wonderful. But it's actually brought up a lot of memories and reminders of when I was a tour manager. And my one of my gorgeous clients and friends. That Chapel has said, what she found so interesting and what she can't wait to hear more about when we spent some time together in India on my retreat with my toddler today's and some of the stories that I shared. And so today, I just wanted to share a little bit about how I got into that and how being a tour manager for charity challenges going on tracks and cycles around the world. I was able to travel or free and to see so much more of the world, then, at that time, I couldn't really afford.

02:35

Don't mind me my voice being bit funny today. But yeah, it was I went on my first ever charity challenge in 2011. Actually, we're just going to go back a step and say,

02:49

my book, The Art of bleter is all about how to combine work and travel. And I've been quite the artist at this. And I think sometimes people think travel has to cost a lot of money.

03:02

Or you have to work work work, then you can go and have a holiday. They don't think about this, there's so many ways to travel the world, there's so many experiences that you can have, that don't require always spending a lot of money.

03:17

Or you know, there's ways to exchange your skills in exchange for your skills or your services in exchange for travel, which is something that I chose to do. Now not everybody wants to do that.

03:29

It's a sacrifice, I chose to make pretty, pretty good one for when you get a $10,000 plus trip for free, I think in to have things that are bucket list, life changing experiences

03:45

in exchange for some work.

03:48

But yeah, you've got to decide what level you're at. And whether you willing to do that. And if your skill sets apply, certainly, from age 25 to even now I'm 37 I am looking at being a tour manager next year for an amazing charity that I love partnering with to go in check Kilimanjaro, Mount Kilimanjaro,

04:12

again, but getting to be a tour manager this time. So

04:17

when I was 21 with that 2009 2008 2008 I was in Tanzania visiting my sponsor child and I first saw Kilimanjaro and I thought I'm gonna come back one day, and I'm going to

04:33

I'm going to claim that at the time I said conquer it. I now know you don't conquer the mountain you you accept her grace. And you ascend and you thank Mother Earth for the experience.

04:47

And yeah, the mountain will decide how you go.

04:51

But yeah, I sort of set that and then whilst I was in South Africa, before I got to Tanzania in December 2008 My

05:00

Grandpa had passed away in the UK.

05:03

Fortunately, I was on my way there. So I did actually get there and get to be there in time for the funeral. And she was really special. And most of my grandpa died with Alzheimer's. He had dementia and Alzheimer's and he died with that. So

05:21

it's a very, very difficult disease. And it's very difficult to lose Lonnie loved before you lose them.

05:27

But I was grateful to be able to go and to send him off and to be with my dad, who's his dad, at the funeral. So I got on the plane out of Kenya, after visiting Tanzania.

05:41

And I was reading this magazine. And in the magazine, it talks about these charity challenges. I hadn't heard of it before. And this man had climbed Kilimanjaro, just very serendipitous. And he'd raise money for charity and for cancer, think for his mother. And I just burst into tears on that plane in that seat. And I was like, I vowed to the universe that I was going to climb Kilimanjaro one day and raise money for Alzheimer's in honor of my grandpa. Little did I know that just 18 months later, I would be doing just that. September 2011. I did it. So the following year, as things work out, I started my own business in 2009. And I got a client soon after who their names inspired adventures. I met them through another client. And they were like, you're pretty good at working with them. Maybe you can do some things for us. And then I was like, Oh, yeah. And then I was like, I like what you do. And actually, I had this idea to climb Kilimanjaro and raise money for Alzheimer's.

06:41

And so they're like, Oh, okay. And so they actually, I had already done some fundraising for Alzheimer's, Australia, New South Wales, my dad and I decided to do that we raised dad worked for an organization and really taking you back here for an organization called the Australian Federation of international freight forwarders. And they used to hold a charity golf Day, which year for different beneficiary. And so I was working in marketing PR role with them, which I'd then transition them into a client in my business. And soon after, that, we decided to raise money for Alzheimer's. And so we connected with the charity. So I already had a connection. And I connected inspired and Alzheimer's Australia, and said, You know, I want to do this. And maybe we should get other people who want to, which I now think I'm pretty proud of that that was quite a pivotal part of that. And so we ended up tracting eight people who also wanted to climb Kilimanjaro, we raised I raised you to raise three and a half 1000, which was not easy when you're 25. And people are donating like 20 bucks here and there. I sold a hell of a lot of chocolate, and I hosted some events. And I ended up raising over 5000. And I went over to Tanzania, and I tracked 5000 ether, 95 meters of that amazing Kilimanjaro. And I was hooked. I loved the tracking. The training was hard. The fundraising was challenging. But it was gosh, it was amazing. And even the night before I went, I was quite nervous or excited. And I started thinking, next time I'm going to do Machu Picchu in Peru. And I'm going to do it for depression in honor of my grandmother, Doris, who lived from age 13, during the life of depression,

08:31

which I went on to experience myself.

08:35

So yeah, I just built this relationship with them. And I really got on well with my amazing tour manager, Matt Bryan, and he's a dear friend still. Or what are we oh, my gosh, 13 years later, and he's there, you'd be great at this, you'd be a great tour manager. I also met a lifelong friend, Fiona Kendall on that trip, who's going to come to my book launch and it means the world to me. And I was like a call. And so I was lined up to do we did make the Machu Picchu trip happen. A black dog Institute. And I went and did that in 2012. And I was lined up to be the tour manager. But unfortunately, through a series of events, I wasn't the tour manager on that one, which is a shame because I was so looking forward to it. And then 2014, the company came back to me and said,

09:22

We need help. We've got so many inquiries, so many calls. Is there any chance we could pay you like an hourly rate to do some calls with people who've signed up actually, and need some kind of training and fundraising support so you can just talk to them about your experience. So I started with Kilimanjaro and I'm sure I'm talking about boots. And you know, that's what the person who with the charity organization did with the fundraising organization did when I did my track. And so Nadia Menzies who I'm still friends with today. Take a lot of friends along the way. And so I started making calls

10:00

And then like can you do a few more

10:03

trips, including a few more trips, and then that ended up becoming a subcontractor to them. I ended up some contraction then for

10:12

like three years after that, and then ended up going on in subcontractors with another company in that role. So I ended up being,

10:20

fundraising and training support. So I would not only help people who are already on trips, I started to handle inquiries too, because sometimes the staff in the office hadn't had the chance yet to go overseas. And so I actually had more knowledge than them.

10:34

And then in February 2014, I was asked to be an assistant tour manager, because there was a very large group going to Cambodia on a cycle for well, beef in Australia. And so there were two tour managers, and we had a group of 18, aged 18 to 81. So 18 people aged 18, to 81. Incredible. still friends with horrible four or five people, including one of my bestest friends in the world, Tess Coleman,

11:02

you just, you spent eight, nine days doing a thing, because you love taking on an adventure, pushing yourself to the limits? How can you not become friends for life. So I did that one is to a manager. And then about, I think it was just like five or six months later, I got asked to go again to Cambodia and Vietnam, for a check for a cycle this time, again, for raising money for camp quality. And so I wasn't much of a cyclist, to be honest with you before that. But a lot of these things are endurance. And I think I do have a strong mind. And also, when you're the tour manager, you're not so worried about your own physicality. You got to take care yourself, but

11:48

I'm worried about I take people on bikes, whether they've got food, whether they're drinking enough water, my group, even the 81 year old called me mum. So I was my nickname for the group was mum. And so even at 20, I'm really bad with my ages 2014 I was 3027, I was being called mum.

12:12

And you know, have you got your hat that you sunscreen, make sure you're eating, do this do that.

12:18

But I loved it. I loved that I loved seeing these people who worked so hard, who achieved a goal makes me really emotional. And getting to support them on these life changing adventures. And I just saw this change and saw the shift in them got to hold them in some of the most

12:36

challenging moments they might have ever been through, we would connect in the most beautiful ways.

12:43

There was a woman who came on that first Cambodia cycle, who was a little bit she was with a friend were keeping themselves together. And I was like, oh, okay, these two. To be honest, I don't love when people come in partners or in groups, because then I feel like they're going to stick together and be a bit Clicky.

12:59

So I kept an eye on and

13:02

but had a chance to like connect with all them before, but you don't really know until you get there. Anyway, it's like day three, and we were they were a bit slower, these two ladies. And so me in the guide, and these two ladies were kind of up the back, we're a bit slower than everybody else. And I just one guy, one guy would always take the back, one manager would step back, the other one got the front.

13:25

Anyway, the other one decided to ride off a bit and I said I'm with the spine and the bus would was driving long near us in case we needed it. And she was kind of struggling. But we just kept like just keep going with this. There's no rush, we'll get to lunch, we get to lunch and just take your time and just kept talking. And anyway, she shared that.

13:46

It was her first trip alone. She was married at 18. She was about 50. Then his two beautiful boys.

13:57

They were teenagers or early 20s. By then. And

14:02

her husband had died suddenly in a plane crash maybe like 18 months before.

14:09

And this was the first thing she was doing by herself since then. And her beautiful friend come with her.

14:16

Only cycled alone when she told me about him.

14:21

He told me about his life. He was Sri Lankan. And I've been just showing her and told me who he was and what he did. And

14:30

we just chatted, we just kept cycling. Uh huh. We made it to lunch.

14:37

I went to the restaurant. Really, um, we

14:41

I went to the toilet, and I saw one of the other ladies from the cycle. And I just I just doubled over and was heaving, crying. And she's like, Oh, what's in like, what are you doing? And I came up and my face was streaming with tears and

15:00

She was oh my goodness, I just, I couldn't believe the strength that she's shown to come on this trip to fundraise on behalf of these children. Um, what she'd been through and now doing what a challenge was to go and do this by yourself

15:22

to see the change in her from the day that I saw her to her opening up like that. And the transformation, you know that to go through after such a life altering event.

15:36

It just blew me away. And I came out of the bathroom, and we saw each other.

15:42

And we hugged, and she just slid into my neck. Thank you. Thank you just

15:52

it was a moment that we shared. And later that night, her writing go into the room, my room and pick something up and just said, thank you for what you did today. And I mean,

16:04

I just It was my honor, like I have no idea. They're just like, just keep writing, just keep cycling, just keep talking. Just keep moving. And she was just came out of herself after that. And those few that like the end of the trip, she was just so much lighter and freer. And it was beautiful to watch. And that is just one example of

16:27

what I've

16:29

been so blessed to witness

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from these people who choose to do these trips.

16:38

Life changing their life changing their transformative. And I've learned this new saying that I talk to my retreat clients a lot about and I used to see it with those trips. Makes sense to me. And what it is, is the trend, the transformation happens at the transaction. So the moment those people chose to go on that trip, the moment they paid their deposit, and started planning, sometimes 12 months out.

17:02

When they said yes to that adventure, when they said yes to themselves,

17:06

the change was happening. So it's not just a nine day trip, or a 10 day trip or the longer said it was like two weeks. It's a year journey. Fundraising is challenging, training is challenging. doing the trick itself is challenging, leaving your family could be challenging.

17:26

The healing of the trauma of whatever you're going for, you know, going on a trip with people raising money for camp quality, whose children had been through had had cancer, a woman on that one of that trip had the child die of cancer. And these people choose to do this on behalf of someone else to give their time to give their energy and their body to do these trips. I just,

17:52

it's remarkable. And I knew all of that, because I had had that I got to the top of Kilimanjaro sunrise.

18:00

I have a video I have a video on I should share the link below this video on YouTube.

18:08

And I say and grandpa, it was all you.

18:12

And I gotta say without getting choked up. But it was huge for him. And I don't have space in this book. My friends said to me

18:23

that wish I loved hearing your stories about and I didn't even tell her those I told her a different one. But not a great story. I've included some of the challenging stories of being a tour manager in the book. I said it's not that type of book.

18:39

Yeah, there's a travel book to come. And maybe there's a book my life as a as a charity challenge to a manager.

18:48

But gosh, I just could tell you story after story of these incredible humans that I've met,

18:55

and what people will put themselves through and go through.

18:59

It's just amazing.

19:02

Hello, my name is Kay toon. And I'm the founder of stay tuned a collection of digital education companies. I've had the pleasure of working with Emma Lovell, and a number of different occasions. Not only will she emcee at my imperson book launch event, she also helps me out on the virtual launch too. I've enjoyed photoshoots with her and Jade, and she's an excellent speaker and presenter. I chose Emma because she is just so full of beans. She brings life energy and enjoyment to wherever and whatever she does. So she's highly recommended.

19:36

And so yeah, that's my gift. That's my benefit. But I mean, along with that my flights are paid for

19:44

much the any expenses within the country paid for so we're staying sometimes in really nice hotels, we get guides and we get cultural experiences.

19:54

And then I get like any expenses I get to expense back so not

20:00

or alcohol, if I want to have some drinks, which I tend to not drink, when I'm talking, managing, I'll have a few celebration drinks at the end. That's my choice. I like to be switched on there. But yeah, souvenirs and stuff of mine, but I really have very little costs.

20:15

I've just had these incredible experiences.

20:18

And, you know,

20:23

I think that if you can think about how to

20:27

travel in a different way, and potentially it is going and doing with these trips, you know, and sometimes that's not a holiday. It's like, Yeah, but it's travel with purpose. And I wrote an article macheda find about travel, travel with purpose when you travel for something that's bigger than you can people kind of like why do you travel so much? Why we go to places?

20:45

I love it. Opportunity. And for a reason, I don't just tend to go. I feel like going to Mongolia. My husband deeds. I said, let's go. Generally, there's a reason why I've gone for a wedding, I've gone for work, I've gone for a family visit, I've gone for a charity challenge, you know, some of these places might not have been on my list. More urgently, but I got offered and asked to go and so I went. And so the tricks trips that I have done, I'll tell you by order is she doesn't live in a climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, or outside of Australia, that was a participant and I raised $5,300 in 2012 to 12, again, as a participant attract the laris Valley and went to Machu Picchu in Peru for Black Dog Institute. And I raised $4,000 in 2014 was my first time as tour manager and I cycled Cambodia for World Vision Australia, which led to me then

21:51

meeting amazing colleague, Lucy Alec, who was the photographer at that time. Then I saw that they had a blog ambassador program and I asked to join it. And then I got to go to Uganda through that program and ended up actually getting a job in the PR and marketing team thanks to meeting one of the people from the media team on the walls on that trip so you never know where things are going to lead as well. Later in 2014, I went to Cambodia Vietnam cycle cycling for quality. I went to Vietnam in 2015. Or with plan Netherlands cycling trip which was one of the most challenging things I've ever done.

22:35

Had 32 Dutch women cycling through the through Vietnam. Some of them are still friends for life. One of my greatest ones is in 2015 I trekked Everest base camp in Nepal for World Vision Australia. And although it was a tour manager, I decided I wanted to raise money. So I raised $5,000, or

22:54

well vision because I care about them deeply. It was just one month before their

23:01

birthday earthquakes in Nepal to so it was very full on afterwards. And

23:07

then after that I got the role with World Vision in their PR team. So I knew the full impact of of the work and what was needed for them. In 2015, I trekked for Black Dog Institute again, this time as the tour manager to Bhutan and raised $3,500. I've also for fun, I went back to Nepal with my dad after conference. So that's bleisure going to a conference and then staying on for a trip. And we tracked to from Lukla to Namche Bazaar, which is part of the Everest base camp route for five days and I was so proud of my dad and so excited he got to see part of my charity challenge world.

23:48

In 2017, I tracked supper Valley for Oxfam Australia as a tour manager in Vietnam. So it's my third trip to Vietnam as a tour manager. I've actually never been purely a tourist but on that trip, thankfully I made some time I did some bleisure So I did the work, which was still bleisure Stick against. And then I asked to stay on and I went to Nimbin and Halong Bay on the extension some of the amazing people, including mine. Now our dear friend Selena Busch, and that beautiful company soulful concepts who I've been working with,

24:26

paid for my extension of the Christmas bonus. So that was very lovely. In 2018 I tried to Great Wall of China for Ms. Australia with an incredible group. And then in 2019, I went on my own adventure

24:42

and I went to Papua New Guinea tracking Kokoda trail, I went as an as a participant, then fortunately did not have a good tour manager which has made this challenge all the harder. But it wasn't actually a charity challenge. I just chose to fundraise. So I fundraised for

25:00

An organization that I volunteer with disabled winter sport Australia raised $5,000.

25:06

I've also tracked the Larapinta Trail in Australia. Again, as a participant, I didn't raise money that time I just went along. But in 2022, I put my terminal cap back on. And I trekked Cradle Mountain for you and women are credle Mountains in Tasmania, Australia, and actually caught up with one of the ladies from that track the other day. So that's my tour manager experience. As I say, hopefully the next one will be Kilimanjaro. But yeah, if you were a adventurous kind of soul, or you have quite a bit of travel experience, there are tour guides and tour managers and tour leaders are needed, and could be a really great way to travel in Nepal trip, it should have cost me five grand, I think it was like five and a half 1000 participants, the flights have you know, staying on it would have cost Well, I'd say seven and a half, eight, it shouldn't cost me that much. And I got to do it for free. Next year, Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro is six and a half to 7000. Generally, you can do it a little bit cheaper, I wouldn't, I'd go with a trusted company. I've got dear friends there, I can't wait to go back and see lights to Africa,

26:21

to Nairobi,

26:23

and then fly to Tanzania. That's gonna be about two grand. So gonna be seven. No to be like an eight and a half $9,000 trip

26:33

that I get to experience for free. And yes, I have to work. But gosh, it's pretty cool.

26:40

And it's challenging. And it takes time away from from home. And obviously take time away from my business. But you're in a place now especially where I can.

26:52

I can have the A's I have my EA, they can keep things running, I also can make sales. Without, you know, I've got sort of,

27:01

I'd say passive income that people can buy from my site anytime so I can be making money while I'm in those tricks. I make money while I'm on my retreats, I made money. The other day while I was getting my hair and makeup done, somebody signed up for my retreat while I was sitting there getting my hair and makeup done. I can make money while I sleep. Obviously I've got to set up the infrastructure, we can talk about passive income and what that really means another time, but it's a very different position to back then I was making a sacrifice of giving up 10 days of work

27:30

in order to have those experiences but it was a choice I chose to make. Now, the way that I've structured my business, I can be making money whilst enjoying the experience whilst being paid to travel. And my plan next year when we go to do that trick is to then fly my husband and my son over afterwards to share Tanzania with them will go to Kenya, go see the elephant orphanage in Nairobi in visitor a baby elephant that we sponsor. And then

28:00

I want to go to Rwanda. I've never been there in East Africa, to see the gorillas

28:08

and we'll probably try and squeeze in a few more over there because it is far. So we will make the most of it. But you know, that's the pleasure bit as well. I'm doing some work in exchange for new trip, building contacts, building connections, some of the one of the people who's coming on my SriLanka retreat. I met her on a track and then on a Vietnam track. One of my clients, Ray, he came on my I'll get him on the podcast again. He came on my retreat day. The other week, he's bought photoshoots from me and Jade. He came on my India retreat with his partner, Mike. He has sponsored my retreat days. And he's also been doing my SEO, Wordpress, hosting, he has true green hosting, he hosts my website for five years. He's the first person I ever invested in. I invested in having my website built with him. And so we have a client, colleague friendship relationship that came off, walking side by side in Vietnam, tracking along chatting going on either business or the business. Oh, we like business. Let's talk about business. And he's one of the most beautiful souls I've ever met because he was there raising money for Oxfam Australia. Like what a generous, amazing person and fun fact, he's going to be a case study in my book, so you're going to read more and learn more about him as well.

29:31

But yeah, I think there's so much opportunity for that. planting a seed. I am going to run a walking retreat at some point. Few things on at the moment, but if you like the sound of these types of challenges or experiences, we will do a retreat where we just walk somewhere beautiful, side by side, talking about ideas being in nature reconnecting to ourselves, reconnecting to the land, and you know, you might be walking

30:00

Going along by your client, by your colleague by a best friend,

30:06

you know, or just, I don't know, you just have a good time. It's so many possibilities and opportunities. So I'm gonna plant that seed right there. You know, I do do luxury retreats, but I'd love to do some more like earthy adventury Venturi and really marry that tour managing together with the type of work I do now. And

30:26

I think that tour managing I know, I know that tour, managing experience, and all that travel experience has made me

30:34

It's why I'm good at retreats. It's why I'm able to hold a group. That's why I'm able to hold space for people because of these challenge charity challenges that I was managing a group of between anywhere from eight to 32 people and taking them through that change and transformation that comes when you do something big, and you back yourself and you invest in yourself and you go for it. And that's what retreats do as well. more more more about my pleasure life. I wish I could talk about this Tumblr interface. I thought this would be a 15 minute episode.

31:06

You go through the all the emotions, you want to learn more about that you can head to Emma lovell.au forward slash about, you can read about my travel and life experience there. You can obviously read the book. If you are around and want to go to Sydney or Gulf Coast. I will be having multiple coaches

31:25

in August and September. So Emma lovell.au forward slash book launch. All the links will be in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening. See you next time.

31:35

Thank you for listening lovely one. I hope this has inspired you to dream big and start creating a life you love today. If you love what you're hearing, don't forget to follow and rate on Spotify and rate review and subscribe on iTunes. It helps other awesome people to find this podcast and get motivated and inspired as well. Want to stay connected. Come and join the live a life you love group on Facebook or connect with me on Instagram. Emma lovell.au The same as my website. But all the details are in the show notes lovely. I'll see you next episode for more inspiration, motivation and freedom seeking Now go out there and live a life you love