Okay so today's post is not going to be as informative or upbeat, mostly because it's not how I've been feeling lately. I have not posted this summer, as it's been a long summer.
When you start out, everything feels fresh and new. The world is full of possibilities, and potential. Settling here has been a dream, one that I get excited about all over again on my good days. On my not so good days, I look around and I literally cannot believe this is my life. I am in my mid-40s, and we're starting over, reinventing myself from the ashes of my previous life.
Logistically, life is so much simpler in Costa Rica especially the Caribbean Coast where I settled, but it's also harder to live here. The modern conveniences of America-- the infrastructure and the amenities just simply don't exist here. Something that should take me 5 or 10 minutes ends up taking me an hour and a half. For example, today I needed gas, and in California,I would have just run to the corner gas station. I had five within a mile and a half of my house. Here, it's a hour and a half round trip to get gas. That's the best and worst part about where I live. No one ends up here by accident, you really have to want to come to this spot of the world. And on my bold days where I am feeling my Towanda and all of my fire, there's not a problem in the world that I can't handle and I can take on anything. But this summer, I've had fewer of those days and more of the self-doubt imposter syndrome days.
So it's not common knowledge out in the webosphere, but I have launched my own company. I decided to go into business for myself last fall. I started a food tour business. Puerto Viejo Food Tours. We started in earnest about October and I took my first clients in late January. It has been an absolute dream come true. When I got here I knew that I didn't want to work in the education field anymore, and it took about 6 months before I figured out what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do something in tourism, I love working with tourists. I love how happy and how excited they are to see this beautiful place that I get to call home. I get so happy helping people find the cool spaces. And for the most part, when people are on vacation they are happy and excited. I get to see the best of humanity. I struggled to figure out how working 25 years in education was going to transfer. What in my skill set I could lend this. Turns out, I do great with people. Everyone that takes my tour absolutely loves it. I have five star reviews on TripAdvisor, 100% of people that have taken it, recommend the tour, when I can get people in front of me, I do great.
What I didn't expect was to have such a hard time getting people in front of me. And I should have. I absolutely should have figured out that it was going to take a minute. I have found myself struggling to learn how to to build a web presence, and how to build out a website, how to market myself....how to get a Google presence. Turns out, I am a great graphic designer which makes sense because of all my time designing PowerPoint slide decks in my previous life. But once you have the design, it's a hard lift to get people to see it and more than that, have it translate into clicks on your website that convert into bookings. My growth curve has been steep and I have sweat for every one of my new skills. I'm proud of how far I've come and what I've accomplished.
But this summer, I started to look at it and think that it wasn't enough. That it's not nearly enough for us to have longevity in this place. That coupled with the fact that the summer is by far the lowest season of the year and even by low season standards this has been just a dismal couple months for the business. I didn't have any bookings for the month of July.
I need four to five bookings a week for me to be able to support the family, currently I am between 0 and 2. Since then, Ryan and I had launched a small catering company, that provides weekly meals to go, baked goods, fresh juices etc. And on good weeks, we make a decent amount of money with that. Last week, though, we didn't get a single person that ordered. So this summer, I also decided to expand and get an Upwork and Fiverr presence. I figured, I can create slide decks in my sleep. I do beautiful work, it's a skill set from my past that I can lean on. Once again, I was under the false impression that people would just book me immediately. And I should have known that they wouldn't. I should have known that it takes time, but I didn't. I booked a couple of jobs, and that's awesome. But each one is far undervalued just so that I can start to get a presence on the apps. I spent 2 hours last week creating a PowerPoint that I made $5 off of. I am not trying to complain. I am well aware how this sounds. I get to live in a gorgeous place that people would dream about moving to. And I did it to myself. That doesn't mean that I don't have bouts of absolute fear and terror about my decision. And while I wouldn't change it, I've never experienced the rabbit hole that is utter self-doubt. I've always been able to make money and support my family. Didn't matter what it was, I could do it...I could grind it out. But in a place that I can't legally work unless I own my own business, coupled with the fact that I can't do in person gig work and side hustles easily because of the infrastructure here... Sometimes it's a lot. And this feeling has been building for a few months now.
Which leads me to this week. I have a friend that owns a retreat center here. And while I've never really considered hosting retreats myself, that's never been something I've been called to do, I have for a very long time wanted to expand the food tour business to include group tours. Part adventure and part relaxation and rediscovery just really showcasing the amazing things that Central America has to offer. I've known for a long time that one of my strong suits is planning trips. I've done it for family and friends my whole adult life and I'm really really good at it. Again I didn't know how that skill set would translate to a lucrative career.
But everything came to a crossroads last Thursday when my friend with the retreat center put out a text message blast that said that she was offering severely discounted rates on her retreat center bookings from now until the end of this year. And all of a sudden I started thinking about what if? What if I could pull together a really cool 6-day vacation that was part retreat, part rediscover who you are, part reconnect with nature, part have a little adventure. The hybrid was born in my head. Part retreat, with daily yoga and meditation with some offerings of sound healing, art therapy, and massage throughout the week; and part nature vacation, with bushwhacking into the jungle, night hikes to find spiders and snakes, surf lessons, finding manatees, kayaking, and rediscovering all those things that your busy life didn't allow you time for.
But then that little self-sabotaging voice in my head started. I have to commit my own money to reserve the dates. And what if I fail? What if I don't get six people. That's all I need-- six people. Tara's space is gorgeous with glamping tents and a big dome tent, a yoga shala, a communal kitchen and shared space. It's breathtaking and it sits in the jungle, right across from the beach. We have the know-how and the expertise to cater it ourselves, it would be for the most part all inclusive. Clients would have to spend very little money outside of what I offer.
I know I can pull it together. I know I can offer an amazing vacation experience. I can't wait to showcase how amazing this little gem on the Caribbean coast is. I'd love to do a 3-day optional add-on going into Bocas del Toro and showing everybody that little gem of the world too. My problem is that little voice in my head that tells me I don't know how to market, I don't know how to tap into the retreat world, I don't know how to do this with only a 3-month lead time because the kicker is that her prices for this are only good until the end of the year. And with the weather patterns here, I really need to do it before the end of November. Which means that I need to commit today and give her the deposit to hold the space and the dates by close of business. Then I have very little time to pull it all together. I asked my husband what he thought. And he told me that he couldn't do it but that he bets on me every time, that I can pull magic out of the air when I need to and then if I want to do it that he will bet on me. That was an amazing thing to hear, I just wish I could bet on myself. I find myself struggling with self-doubt this whole summer, but most especially this week. I know that I'm trying to lift things from scratch, and a lot of them all at once. And that takes time and patience and practice. And I am willing to be patient, I just don't know if my bank account is going to hold out.
In California, when money was tight or I need to add a side gig, I would jump on Instacart, Rover, or Task Rabbit and I make $1,000 in a week doing extra side hustles. They don't have that here... there is no Instacart,Uber food delivery services, Task Rabbit etc. You have to create your own side hustle here and there's a lot of people making a lot of noise, each trying to be heard above the din, creating their side hustles. Trying to carve their niche here as well. I guess it was a combination of a lot of things this summer.
Summers here are rainy and gray, the water quality gets murky, and choppy, it's a very stormy season. That just created the backdrop for a very long, very emotionally fraught summer. I want to take the leap... I want to trust in myself enough that I can bet on myself. That I know that there are six people out there and they're dying to come during Thanksgiving week. I know if I can get them in front of me they'll have a great time. Just like with the food tour I know how to host a great time for people. It's the other skills that I've never needed-- the marketing skills, the computer skills that I'm trying to develop as I do it and it's scary and filled with self-doubt. And the stakes are so high. So so high.
That's all I got for today.
コメント