In late 2022, I read a book by Dan Sullivan & Benjamin Hardy titled “The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers’ Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success.” The premise of the book itself is simple: we as humans have been conditioned by society to live in “the gap.” The gap is that ideal state in our lives that we constantly fall short of. It could be a goal that you can’t reach by yourself and requires external inputs that you have no control over. While in the gap, you are looking forward to something in the future, instead of being aware of the progress that you’ve made in the past and present.
“The gain” is the opposite of the gap – it’s the mindset where you’re tracking the progress that you’ve made. It’s the habit of learning to appreciate experiences, both negative and positive, and using those lessons to shape the person you are in the moment. And according to Sullivan & Hardy, it’s the key to long-term happiness, confidence, and success. It’s basically living in the moment.
An example of living in the gap vs the gain could be: Setting a goal to work with 10 brands in one year and then only working with 8. A person living the gap would focus on the fact that they failed and missed their goal by 2 brand deals as opposed to celebrating the fact they landed 8.
So, what does this have to do with our travel blog and a one word theme? Well, after reading that book, it really helped put things in perspective. Honestly, the past few years have been a crazy rollercoaster ride. We experiences the highs of visiting incredible places, and the lows of seeing our business opportunities dwindle in the pandemic. It’s easy to blame and lament what could have been if the pandemic hadn’t happened or if we had opted to join the short form video craze sooner. But at the same time, we were fortunate to have the travel experiences that we did, and that was denied to many that planned on starting a full-time travel adventure in 2020.
So while we focus this year on maintaining a “gain mindset,” the mechanism of how we plan to do so is our one word theme for this year. In 2018, we were BOLD. In 2019, we persevered through GRIT. In 2020, we completed a REVOLUTION. In 2021, we sought to SURVIVE. In 2022, we found CLARITY. Now in 2023, our key to the year is:
Consistency is one thing that has constantly eluded us throughout the years.
While the definition is pretty dense, I think it’s fair to say that in the past we’ve lacked harmonious agreement as a whole. When we traveled full time, we’d go from a blistering pace moving from city to city every few days, to a recovery phase where we’d stay in one place for over a month. We’d hustle to produce podcast episodes while missing weeks here and there. We would chase multiple shiny objects hoping to find the lightning in a bottle that would level up our business. Basically, we were the opposite of consistent.
For the past few months, we’ve been preparing a strategy to accomplish one singular thing: to distill our travel experiences into engaging/useful content to help others travel more together. And we’re going to do it by consistently showing up, consistently iterating, and consistently striving to learn more!
Consistently Showing Up
This is the most important for us this year! We can’t control how much or little growth we will have this year. But, we can control what we’re putting out to the community every day. And for us, it’s really important to build a consistent rhythm and get in a groove. So this year, we are going to show up. When we tell you there’s a podcast episode every Tuesday, then we’re damn well going to deliver! To prepare for this, we’ve built a content calendar so you know what to expect from us every week. Here’s what that looks like:
- Monday: A new blog post goes live on our blog
- Tuesday: We release a new travel podcast episode. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to your podcasts!
- Wednesday: A new blog post goes live on our blog
- Thursday: We release our email newsletter, The Jetset Review, straight to your inbox! If you’re not already on our email list, go here to join in!
- Friday: Potpourri Day! We plan to have something different each week – from Live Q&A sessions on Social Media, to free guides and resources.
We have a couple of other surprises in store for you this year as well, and we’ll share more info the closer we get to launching certain things!
Consistently Iterating
I’m sure you’ve heard that quote by Albert Einstein about insanity before. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” While we do have a consistent schedule for the types of content that we put out, we do want to make sure we’re giving you the right info. And to do this, we’d love your feedback! If something helps, let us know. If something is a waste of time, also let us know! We’re going to be tinkering with our approach throughout the year, but at a minimum you can expect us to show up based on the schedule above.
Consistently Learning
Travel and content creation is always evolving, and we’re committing to staying on top of new trends, tips, and technology throughout the year! Ultimately, the more informed we become about family travel, the better we’re able to serve you. This also feeds one of our products: our digital courses. In 2019 we launched The Art of the Pitch which helps creators land collaborations and work with the brands of their dreams. This year, we are making some big updates to the course and will be re-launching it soon! We’re also working on another course related to photography that we can’t wait to give you more info on later this year.
Ultimately, by staying consistent we hope to be able to provide you with the resources and inspiration that you need to take a leap. Whether it’s a vacation, staycation, or a jump into traveling full-time, we’re here for you and look forward to contributing to this amazing family travel community!
