This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Oh, hello there. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Side Hustle School," where every day we talk about creating freedom, creating options, having more ownership over your life, making decisions for yourself, through the form of a side hustle, a second or third source of income, and maybe even a fourth or a fifth, who knows? This is not about having a big startup. It's not about quitting your job and jumping off a cliff. It's about doing something for yourself so that you can then do what's important to you.
And every day on the show, I'm telling a different true story of somebody who does exactly that. And today's story gets her inspiration from initially feeling a bit disenchanted. I don't know about you. If you've ever felt disenchanted or disillusioned, maybe that's too strong of a word, but just kind of dissatisfied, discontented. You know, you're looking around and you're like, you know, I'm not miserable, like I've got a good life, but isn't there something more?
What do I have to figure out for myself out there? Personally, I think that is a very powerful feeling. I think it's something that you shouldn't ignore. It's actually something you should embrace. So if you do ever have those feelings, maybe just absorb them, pay attention.
Don't push them out of your life because they're there for a reason. Now today's story features a woman who had that kind of feeling. After building a successful career, being a high achiever, just kind of looked around and said, you know, what else is out there? And that led her to make a big transition. In fact, you could say she was frustrated with climbing the corporate ladder and she found adventure waiting for her at the bottom.
She ends up starting a travel planning service for women. I'll tell you all about how it came to be and how it works, of course, right after this quick shout out to today's sponsor. [Music]
Mary Saccini did all the things she thought she was supposed to do. She went to college and got a degree in marketing. She eagerly jumped into the workforce and worked hard, but after nearly eight years of climbing the corporate ladder and chasing promotions, she realized she wanted something different.
You see, Mary was successful, but she didn't feel like she was the one guiding the ship. Instead, she felt she was drifting further and further away from what she wanted her life to look like. You see, she'd always wanted to travel. She felt that doing so might give her more clarity, might give her more of a vision for her life, but her 60 hour work schedule and her very limited time off forced her to put that on the back burner. So she made a promise to herself.
She said, you know, in one year's time, I'm gonna quit my corporate day job and go off to see the world. Now we do realize, of course, that most of our listeners can't do that, but in Mary's situation, she was like, I have to make a change. I have to do something and I've got skills. So if I need to, I can always come back and get another job. So she kept that promise to herself.
She traded in her heels and briefcase for a set of comfy hiking shoes and a travel pack. She then spent five months doing a solo trek through Europe, beginning in Turkey and then heading West. After all those 60 hour work weeks, she says it was the best gift she ever gave herself. Now during her travels, Mary did a lot of reflection and she took away three things. Number one, whatever she did next, she wanted travel to be a part of it.
Experiencing different cultures nurtured her curiosity and brought her joy. Number two, she wanted to serve a community that mattered to her. What she was doing with her corporate job was fine, but at the end of the day, she couldn't really say it mattered. And number three, she wanted something that would give her more flexibility. When she was first taking a look at her life a year before she traveled, her mother had a brain aneurysm that completely shook her world.
During that time, Mary wanted to support her mom, but with her high stress job, she wasn't able to be there as much as she wanted. So if she was gonna be able to continue the change she had begun by traveling, she wanted to work in some flexibility. Still, all of that was fine and well, but what she needed was a good idea that would encompass all of those requirements. She effectively needed a North Star and she found it through the blog she started while she was traveling. Along the way, she had been documenting and sharing her journey.
And after a while, she started to notice a trend. There were an overwhelming number of responses from women at all walks of life who wanted to do the same thing as her, but didn't have the time to plan or were held back by the reservations about traveling solo. And when I say do the same thing as her, I don't mean quit their job and travel for six months, but just go somewhere that they've always been dreaming of or maybe somewhere they've never thought of before, but somewhere that's different, somewhere that would nurture their curiosity. So this led a spark for Mary. She thought back to all the stops she'd made along the way.
She realized she could plan these kinds of trips for other women and make it easier for them to have the life experiences they wanted without the burden of having to plan it themselves or go it alone. She would put together group travel experiences for women and plan each step of the way from hotel stays to where they go to eat to the activities they do. Mary's mom had always told her, "Love big, live big." So when it came time for her to name her women-only travel company, she decided to call it living big. She picked up some marketing contract work in order to pay the bills and give her some flexibility to build the side hustle the way she wanted. Unfortunately for Mary, she had some skilled friends and family who helped her put together the pieces.
Her sister-in-law helped her design the logo and her brother-in-law helped her assess out what she needed to do in order to secure insurance. From there, she just started doing what she did best, which was building and marketing her brand. That's what she had done for corporations before and now she was doing it for herself. Starting with the people who had connected with her on her blog, she reached out to women who had expressed interest in going on a planned trip. For that first trip, nine women jumped with the opportunity to try something new.
So Mary planned an excursion to Costa Rica. For $2,000, airfare not included, Mary planned each aspect of a seven-day, eight-night trip from where they stayed and where they ate to zip lining and yoga on the beach. She says it was incredible. Everything went better than she could have imagined and she knew then that this was something with long-term potential. Since then, Mary has helped plan vacations for around 150 women on 15 different trips to places like Switzerland, Iceland, Croatia, Thailand, and Italy.
And she's even added some options for people who are looking for assistance with solo vacation planning. Most of her trips range between two and $4,000, depending on how long it is and where it is. And in her first year of business, she brought in around $40,000 in net income. Mary has learned a lot of lessons along the way. Number one lesson, she says, "I wish I had started living big much sooner than I did." She used to look at successful business owners and seeing them as having everything figured out.
But what she discovered is that, you know what, all of us are just kind of figuring it out as we go. She also said, "You're never gonna feel 100% ready. So if you wait for that moment, it may never arrive." Good advice, thank you, Mary. At some point, Mary hopes to turn living big into her full-time career. But for the time being, she's happy to grow her brand slowly and intentionally.
She's also grateful to have the marketing contract work so that she doesn't have to put too much pressure on herself or on the new venture. She feels like if she did, money would have played a bigger part in making her decisions. In other words, if she didn't start this as a side hustle, she might not have been able to make decisions based on what was best for the company. And of course, what was best for herself. So maybe this is another reason for somebody out there to start a side hustle.
Maybe this is another reason to look at your life and ask yourself, am I fulfilled? Is there something missing? And if so, what steps do I take next? All right, so first of all, congratulations to Mary. Good job on paying attention to that disenchantment, being willing to step out and try something new.
Remember for you over there, I would encourage you if you feel disenchanted at some point, if you feel dissatisfied, that feeling is there for a reason, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It might lead you to something much greater, at least if you pay attention to it and do something about it. So good for her on that. And I was taking a look at her website and I noticed that since starting this side hustle turned business, Mary has been to more than 30 countries. It also looks like she's working with other guides, which she calls hosts now, which I think is good because she can only be in one place at a time.
If she is ever gonna grow this, she can't do it just by traveling more places herself. So clearly she's thought about that and she's planning ahead, she's planning for the future, while still focusing on the core values of the brand. And something else she mentioned in her notes to us, she says she spent a lot of time trying to understand her ideal clients. And this is similar to an exercise I have in the side hustle book, asking yourself, where does that person get their information from? What social network do they prefer to use?
And Mary said, it's good to meet those people in the place that they're already going to learn and make decisions. You wanna make sure you're authentic, you're not pandering to them, but you are reaching out to them. You are trying to connect because after all, they are your ideal customers, your ideal clients. Those people who are just perfect for your travel planning service or whatever it is that you're making. So that's all for today.
I hope you're thinking about your freedom plan, whatever it looks like, whatever it entails for you. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action, that's the better way to go. You can find today's show notes at sidehustleschool.com/416, that's 416. If you have a comment or question for the show, give me a call on the Hustle hotline. That number is 8449 Hustle, 8449 Hustle, or 844-948-7853.
Wherever you are in the world today, wherever you are in life, I'm cheering you on and I'll be back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School.
