Seasons & Discipline

What season are you in right now and how does it serve you?

My response a few months ago was: I feel bad for not writing anything on my Substack, not posting so much on LinkedIn, not meditating anymore, etc.

But soon after, I stopped regretting it and remembered that a year has seasons. So does your career and private life. 

In every season you need different things and you have different priorities. In summer you need flip-flops and in winter you need a warm hat.

For the past year my career “season” has been constant work, building things, discipline and in my private life, new love.

I didn’t take a lot of time to reflect, contemplate and therefore, write, because I’ve been focusing so much on work.

What I’ve been busy with for the past months?

Up until May this year, I’ve been busy with work in the travel agency, traveling to conferences, looking for business partners and developing epic tourism products.

Then, something happened that turned my life around.

My CEO asked me if I would help him open a restaurant inside the hotel he just bought on the Slovenian coast and I had 2 weeks.

My response was: yeah, sure. At that point, I knew it was going to be a wild summer.

In the next 2 weeks, upon deciding we’re opening a pizzeria, I found a restaurant manager and together we built a team, got the equipment, set up processes and systems and officially opened the place on June 14. 

After opening, the work didn’t stop. We had to promote the place, work with employees, constantly improve, manage the whole place and work together with the hotel. 

The summer season went well, considering it was our first 3 months being open. We made a good starting point for next summer. Considering also it was my first-time involvement in a restaurant business.

A couple of months later, in September, I took a new role. 

I took over as hotel manager of the same hotel which includes the restaurant.

It’s something I always wanted to try and now I got this opportunity. A big responsibility for sure, but it’s what I wanted.

Apart from the hotel, I’m still involved with the travel agency business, especially now as the season for looking for new business partners, conferences and events has started.

My first intro to the season has been visiting Panama for the Adventure Travel World Summit.

Yes, Panama. I couldn’t believe I was going to travel to this location for work but here I was. The ATTA people always look for spectacular locations like this for their conferences and this one didn’t disappoint. 

About 600 participants from all over the world, all radiating the adventure travel spirit.

Meeting up with old friends and meeting new amazing people with amazing travel businesses.

It was also one of the first times I took a few days off after the conference to explore the place instead of flying back immediately as I usually do.

If Panama wasn’t on my list before, it is now (and it should be on yours too). Just an amazing place at the crossroads of the Americas. The bridge between the two largest oceans. With this unique location and the Canal, they have always been somewhat of a hub for business and culture.

I took the time and had the opportunity to have a few experiences with locals who showed me what life is like in Panama and how it’s shaping their daily lives. I felt like an explorer again, which in Europe I rarely do nowadays.

I also found out something about my interests and passion. I found that I didn’t even know what I could potentially be passionate about. You don’t know what you don’t know.

I didn’t know I had an interest in logistics and ships until I heard about the history and operations of the Panama Canal.

6 months ago I didn’t have an interest in cigars but now I do and based on that passion I travel in a different way. For example, I organized a meetup during the conference in a local cigar bar to smoke cigars and drink whiskey.

These passions can create memorable connections and experiences and you never know what passions and interests you might develop.

There’s also a place and time for focusing on specific interests. Therefore the concept of seasons.

While I know I’m still going to be extra busy with the hotel and travel agency business, I plan to put a lot more emphasis in the coming months on meeting new people, attending/organizing events, looking for inspiration and new business opportunities. Perhaps also writing more of these!

I wanted to finish with a thought I’ve been having for the past couple of days.

“To have the privilege to do what you want, you have to make sacrifices and be disciplined.

You need to strip down everything that’s not getting you to where you want to be.

You need structure to allow yourself meaningful non-structure.”