Subscribe & Review on Apple!

Get first access to our latest episodes! If you haven’t already, make sure you subscribe to the Travel Agent Achievers podcast. Each week we release a new episode that will help increase your knowledge and expertise as a travel agent. Click here to subscribe to Apple.

Once you’ve subscribed, leave us a written review on iTunes or your favourite podcast platform.  Simply click here to give us a review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review.” 

If you have any colleagues that this information may be useful for, share an image of this podcast on socials and make sure to tag us! 

@travelagentachievers 

 READ THE TRANSCRIPT IF YOU PREFER - BELOW 

"Structure, Sustainability & Stronger Client Relationships with Sammi Jaeger"

Ros: Well, hey everybody, welcome back to the Travel Agent Achievers podcast. I am Ros your host, and today we have a lovely guest, a good friend of mine, Sammi. Now. Sammi, yes. She's a an incredible human but she brings a wealth of experience in business and life. She's a business strategist. I have known her to do a lot of personal development work. She's incredible at relationship building and connecting with humans in general. And I know as travel professionals, we think about the relationships that we have and we want to work towards growing them and sustaining them and having fulfilling businesses. Sammi is somebody that I I've wanted to have on the podcast for a very long time, because she knows so much about so many different things. So even her own bio says that she is a life strategist, a coach, a speaker, a podcaster and an author in the making. She's got an incredible book that I know will be coming out soon, so we'll keep an eye out for that. But after her life hit a crossroad, she hit the wall, she picked herself up again, and she began leaning into creating and living her very own fueled up life, but this time doing it by the way that she wanted to and designing it herself. She's deeply passionate about the relationships that we have around us and how they impact the quality of our lives. She is an advocate for the United Nations Global Goals, and knows that we all have a role to play in creating a better world. She's just an incredible human, a lovely, lovely human, but she's always forging a beautiful path forward, and she does it with such grace humility, and is one of the kindest and biggest hearted people that I know. Sammi, welcome to the Travel Agent Achievers podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.

Sammi: Oh, thanks, Ros. That fueled me up a little bit. That was nice to hear.

Ros: Well, it's all very true, my friend. I mean, just thinking about you and all the things that you've achieved, it it lights me up, because you inspire me in so many ways. And when I look at the life that you've designed and you've built for yourself. It's something that I think a lot of us strive to achieve. Can you tell us a little bit about this whole background? And I do want to jump into so many things that you've previously done, like your integrator work, and we've spoken about five love languages and all of the cool stuff with business. But how did fueled up life actually start for you?

Sammi: Yeah, it was born from my own burnout experience. So in the sort of five years leading up to turning 30, I was pushing really, really hard in my career, I was working for a training and education company. We were our client base for business owners in all different types of industries, and I pushed myself to a point of burnout. So it was the year that I was turning 30. So 20, right at the start of 2019, I realized I don't know what, but not this, and I quit with no plan. I really didn't know what I was going to do, because I'd poured all of myself into that job and that company, and I had foreseen myself being there for a really long time, and I was really good at it too, but I had was experiencing some health issues, really strange, blood tests. I was having difficulties, sleeping, anxiety, migraines, headaches, eczema, like just the whole spectrum of bits and pieces, digestive issues. So this is more than like burning the candle at both ends, I was really burnt out, and I ended up in hospital to have some crazy tests because I really just couldn't figure it out. But on the outside, it was looking really good, right? Like that. I was kicking all these goals at work and achieving a lot of things, and I was really dialed into my professional development, and I was leading a very high forming team who was just awesome. But then it I just I couldn't anymore. I got to the end of 2018 we'd wrapped up our last event for the year, and I was taking a couple of weeks break in Sri Lanka. I went on holidays, and expected it to recharge and nourish me. And I ended up working for quite a bit of the trip and taking phone calls and slack messages and emails, and I really couldn't unplug. And when I got back to work the the first, you know, week or so, I just realized I wasn't going to be there long term. And thought, gosh, I can't lead this team. To a future that I know that I'm not going to be part of. So I quit with no plan, and then sort of fumbled my way through the next 12 months freelancing and working for myself. And I took a big chunk of time off in Europe and had an incredible trip with my husband Nathan, some friends chartered a yacht, went to Paris Champaign, all the beautiful things, all the magical sunsets in Santorini. I know I'm on a travel podcast, so lots of you been to lots of those magical places. But towards the end of that trip, my husband Nathan, had to go back to work because, you know, he had a job, and I didn't. And I was confronted with the reality that I didn't want to go home, and not because I was wanted to continue traveling, but because I didn't want to go home to the life that I had left there. I didn't know what I wanted to do, who I was going to be, anything. So I flew myself from Madrid airport to Lombok, Indonesia, and sort of started my healing journey. Cried a lot, journaled a lot, and started to confront like that. I had created this. I had created this life that I hated and was unreally unhappy in. So that was the origin story of what has become the methodology of living a fueled up life. I was looking at a blank canvas and had the opportunity to design it again with intent, so that it didn't just look better, but that it actually felt better as well. So I Yeah, started to get really intentional about the life that I wanted to create, which is then turned into these incredible framework that I've been sharing across podcasts and interviews and speaking gigs and activities and workshops and all that kind of thing, which I would love to share with the audience, but that's the OG story.

Ros: Yeah, so with the the burnout, this is what I have definitely seen in the travel industry, particularly prior to the pandemic. So 2019, 2020, a lot of advisors were reaching out, saying, I I'm so tired, I feel as though it's just continuous and in what we do, and the majority of people that I work with are home based or mobile travel advisors, and they've chosen that life as entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, or to have a small team and work from home due to the lifestyle and the life that they want to build, and have the flexibility to take care of family or look after what's going on at home, and then also be able to work. What I saw was, I'm tired. I can't think anymore. It's too much. My business is just growing and growing and growing. And then the pandemic hit, and there was this massive crash. And so for the travel industry, there was a lot of aching, and, you know, I'm done the headaches, the migraines that I heard you say. So there were, there were the physical things that started to come up. And a lot of advisers, and a lot of the industry was just started drinking. Yeah, it became a thing, yeah, let's just have a drink every afternoon and we'll jump on Zoom together. And it became this pattern, and what I found was a coping mechanism as well. But since all of that has happened, I've also started to see more and more people experiencing burnout, which is why I'm curious. Like for you, you mentioned a few of the symptoms. What made you say? This is burnout?

Sammi: I didn't know. I didn't know I was experiencing burnout. I just knew that I didn't feel good, and I it was really only a year, about a year later, when I was freelancing, and I had attended a random networking event, and the guts of the event was around pitching your services and getting your elevator pitch really dialed in. And I got partnered with a girl in the room, and she gave me her elevator pitch. And I was like, holy shit. So she was a workplace psychologist who specialized in post traumatic stress disorder, and she was describing what I had experienced like that I had self, sacrificed my identity to my work, and how much that was still lingering, like a year later, and I was still experiencing, yeah, a lot of Post Traumatic Stress type symptoms, but she kind of helped nudge me in the direction of this is what you're describing, is far more than, like, bit tired, bit worn out, fatigued, yeah, yeah. And then I started to take it a lot more seriously. So I reckon it took me about a year to start considering. Thing that I needed to deal with it, but then it took me a year to then detangle it from there. So working with naturopaths, doing journaling, getting back to exercise, they're not, they're not. You've probably all heard these types of things before, but yeah, it was really, it was a hard hole to dig myself out of.

Ros: Absolutely and did you find that just getting to a certain point you'd feel a bit better? And so it's like, cool, I can continue on. And as you said, you you chose to leave the career that you had. Yeah, incredible job. So could you find yourself as you would get a little bit better, and then you'd sink back down, and then it's like, okay, like, so big changes just had to happen, as you say.

Sammi: Yeah. So what I kind of liken it to is, and I'm sure lots of you listening have done this, have gone on a trip, like I said, I went to Sri Lanka for a couple of weeks, and expected it to refuel me, yeah? And got back and, no, that's, that's, that. That was not an effective strategy. But of course, I repeated that pattern, and when I fled and went to Europe for a few months and did the exact same thing on a different scale, and I kind of liken it to like if you if your car the fuel tank is empty, and you just go and park it in the garage and then wake up the next morning and expect it to somehow have magically refueled like that's not how it works. You have to take it to the petrol station to put fuel back in, and that's kind of what I'd done with myself, right? I had gone and parked my my vehicle, my mind, body, soul, in Europe for a couple of months, and then when it was time to use that vehicle again. I couldn't, because I hadn't actually put any fuel in. I just parked it, you know, drinking champagne and going on picnics and watching sunsets in Europe. So, yeah, I really had to get clear about what type of fuel I needed. And it's hard for me to reflect on this now, because I have so much more language and understanding than I did at the time. When I was experiencing it, I was confusion. And like you said, some parts would get better, but then others not so much. You know, it's much easier to be relaxed and sleep well when you're on holidays or you're on vacay mode, Do Not Disturb is is well and truly on, but yeah, it took a while, and some of the gut health things took longer than like the migraines and headaches and things like the responses to stress were very different. Yeah. So the reality is, it's not a short path to undo, but it's totally possible. Yeah, and there are things that you can if you're experiencing some of those signs and symptoms of burnout. I just I wish that I had listened to myself. I wish that I had listened to my body. I wish that I'd had more intuition to say, okay, my eyes are not working. Maybe that means something, hey, you're not sleeping. Maybe that means something like, there's something bigger going on here, a lot sooner than I did, particularly when the symptoms were, like, all over the place, like some of everything. But yeah, the canary in the coal mine went off a long time before I actually did anything about it.

Ros: There was, was there a point that you said, I just, I'm done? Was there a catalyst?

Sammi: So, yeah, so I had that those two weeks off in Sri Lanka, and I got back to work, and we were having, we were having our global I was working for a remote first company. Even back then, in 2018 we were having our global strategy meeting for like, the year, like, you know, we're kicking off this brand new calendar year. What are we going to do? What's on the horizon? I was just looking at that, and I was like, I just don't have it in me to do any of that. I'm done. I'm done. I'm tapped out. I don't the desire is gone. The appetite is gone. The facade like I couldn't even fake it. I couldn't even fake enthusiasm.

Ros: For people around you recognizing things?

Sammi: No, no.

Ros: You're pretty good at hiding it too.

Sammi: Yeah, and this was part of what, like was really confronting in how deeply I had disconnected from myself. Was because when I quit, I was I was flooded with beautiful messages, emails, calls, flowers, gifts of people acknowledging the role that I'd played, either with on client side or with the team. But it just made me sad, because I was like, fuck. Nobody could even see how much I'd been struggling. I'd really been holding it together, duck on water, looking elegant and graceful, cruising along the top while underneath, letting myself burn to the ground. Um. And I had, I'd been performing my way through this, all looking hunky dory when that was not my reality at all. I had been self sacrificing, my personal boundaries, my sleep, my health, my medical care around that health, you know, being a remote first team with, I think we had like 11 time zones, so someone was always working, and I was leading that ship, so I was also always working. And I'm sure all of you in the travel industry can recognize that when you've got clients who are in a multitude of different time zones, there's always someone getting on a flight, someone being delayed, a cancelation, or whatever the thing might be, it can be really, really challenging to want to show up as the professional that you you perceive yourself to be, but at what cost?

Ros: It's definitely at what cost, and that is something that we, we we've definitely experienced in the industry and the conversations that I have, it's, it's like, oh, I just, but I need to do this. There's nobody else to do it, and that the sacrificing ourselves boundaries was a big thing that I heard you say as well. But do you think there's a reason why so many entrepreneurs and so many business owners actually struggle with, you know, saying no or setting those boundaries or even giving themselves permission to take a step back and rest and recharge?

Sammi: There's a few things that I think are at play. We've been taught that rest is laziness or that it's lost opportunity.

Ros: That's true. My husband said to me, this is why I get up at 5am in the morning, or I'm at the gym and I'm working at 4am because I'm two hours ahead of everybody else.

Sammi: We are flogged with the productivity porn, right? Like the 5am club, the like, get more done. Just get up at you know, the one that, like, really, like, started to surface, I don't know, a couple years ago it was like the five to nine before my nine to five, like, and it's like, what have we created? Right? Where it's like, you should be hustling between 5am and 9am before you start your day gig, whether or not you're working for yourself or someone else. So I think that plays a really big impact in the like, the belief that we have about what rest is, or what relaxation is, and that narrative about it being lazy, as opposed to, you know, the belief that I have now is that my downtime powers my uptime, and I know that I believe that, and I know the person that I am without that downtime, and I know how I can perform in my uptime when I've had that downtime. Yeah, I also think that we equate our worth, especially in service based roles, to those gold stars that you get. And this was something that I really had to reconcile after I left that role, because I had been, like, really good at it, and our team had been performing really well by all accounts, the scoreboard looked great, but again, it had cost me myself, and it was really hard to acknowledge how much I had been letting those external achievements, goals, validation, pats on the back Fuel me like and help shape my sense of worth and sense of self confidence and identity, like, that's a really unuseful fuel source because it can be taken away. Yeah, like those things, really, I've learned how much more sustainable ways of being able to give those things to myself, those accolades, those pats on the back. So there's recognition that I'm far less reliant on getting that from outside sources. So I think that plays a big role too in the narrative that we tell ourselves when we are resting or we are taking a break, is like you're not getting those little dopamine hits of the good girls and the well done and at a at a girl, kind of feedback. I think we do, like, culturally glorify being busy as well instead of being effective. I know, like, in the last probably two years or so as AI, and what we can do in what periods of time, I guess no one's working less. They're just producing more, right? It's not like, okay, cool. Well, it used to take me eight, eight hours to do this task, and now it takes me one. You're not not working those seven. You're just producing more, right?

Ros: Or different that's therefore different, yeah? Focus on different things as well. So, yeah, it's like those roles are getting bigger for business owners. Definitely. I see that for sure. Yeah, right.

Sammi: Write a blog, social media, content, update your website, send 20 a cold outreach, like, and that's just like, oh, all before 10am yeah, and then do it again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. But yeah, I really believe that. That rest is is strategic if you want to play the long game. And I am very grateful to have learned this lesson so hard in at 30.

Ros: It's made a profound impact and change the way that you do things is that also changed for you from a boundaries perspective, and saying no, yeah, because that is also something that I see in the the industry that I'm in, is it's so hard to say no to somebody if they're coming to us to book a trip, there's already the trust, there's already, you know, the the stickiness there that people are coming to us for a reason, because they've heard about us from other people. The referral and repeat business is very big, so it's so hard sometimes to say, no, do you think that that also contributes to burnout?

Sammi: Absolutely that was definitely my experience. I can when I was sitting in Lombok like reflecting on the life that I had created, part of the irony was that I was a goal setter and I was a planner, it just happened that all of the goals and plans and things that I was making were in one area of my life, like they were all about career, all about develop, professional development, and I neglected all these other areas. And that was like a hard truth to swallow and acknowledge and like take ownership for my part in creating that burnout of like, Yeah, girl, you, you, you disrespected your own personal boundaries multiple times a day, every day, for probably four or five years leading up to this. Like, you didn't ask for help when you genuinely needed it. You, you didn't raise any flags like ahead of time, and then were embarrassed about needing the help in the first place, and didn't have personal boundaries or professional boundaries about what I would say yes to, I would I would say no to, or what I consider to be a good use of my time or ineffective use of my time, heaps of it was me, but that those boundary setting, things like that's all well and good to say, like, just have better boundaries, but learn just boundaries in place. Yeah? Like, some of us don't even know what that means, yeah, don't even like, can't even conceptualize the reality that you're living to like, what a highly boundary you know life might look like.

Ros: Can you give me some examples of what you have as boundaries for you?

Sammi: I think of them far more as like self, permission, things. So a really easy like one to visualize is that I have I really take care of my my body. I know that my mental health, physical health, like everything, is better when I exercise. So I have a block in my calendar every single day reoccurring that just says, move my body. And it's most days it's 90 minutes. So that gives me time to get my gym stuff on, or get my active wear on, do the thing and get home and get, you know, jiggled. Honestly, I probably take a bit longer than that, but I'm okay with moving the block earlier or later in the day, depending on the needs, but I'm not okay with missing it. So it that took time to build it up to being every day, especially when I went from not doing anything like that. Would like exercise was like a, you know, once in a blue moon thing to now being an absolute pillar in my relationship with myself, but I had that was uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable to decline a meeting or to say no to someone else because I wanted to go for a walk or because I wanted to go to a surf lesson, or whatever the thing might have been, but now I don't feel any kind of way about that like

Ros: So that's been through practice learning to say no, yeah. Well, and being comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Sammi: It's not just about learning to be to say no, though I think it's also being deeply connected to what saying yes would mean, right? So every yes means a no somewhere else in my life, like, you know, like if I say yes to this, what am I saying no to? So if I say yes to that client meeting, well, then I'm saying no to getting my exercise today. And am I okay with that and without the clarity that that's important to me and that that's high on my values. It's probably very easy to say yes to the meeting, you know, whereas now I have a lot more visibility of what's important to me and what matters to me, and what my relationship with myself looks like when it's at its best to what when it's at its worst, it gives me a lot of clarity to say that's an now, I that's not even a challenge of the yes or the No, because I'm really clear about what matters to me, and this has taken a while to learn.

Ros: Oh yeah. I mean something that we can just everybody hears five steps. Yeah? Well, there are steps.

Sammi: There's definitely steps like. I, you know, I had this experience, you know, quit my job, like January 2019 and here we are, like, eight. What is it? May, May 2025, yeah, you know, I, I spent a year avoiding the fact that I had to do some personal and professional development. And then I spent a year really doing the do and learning and journaling and unpacking and rebuilding and getting dialed into my my marriage and my relationship with myself, and my relationship with my friends, and then I've been sort of like practicing those things for the sort of four years since then, so And there's still things that I I want to get better at still things where I choose. I shouldn't say the wrong thing, but I don't always get different choices. Yeah, I don't always get the decision right.

Ros: Yeah, but there is there a right or wrong? Do you feel?

Sammi: Yeah? I think sometimes there is. I think there's sometimes, in retrospect, really like, yeah, I really shouldn't have done that, my intuition told me that that was a bad decision, or I I said yes, and that was a lie when I really wanted to say no.

Ros: Right? So just being honest with yourself and truthful and respecting yourself, I think, in a lot of this, because there are choices that we make every day, and it's, is this going to help me or hinder me? Yeah, and and to also accept to that we're going to make mistakes. And I say this to my team and all the time, it's okay to make a mistake. I don't want you to beat yourself up over it and go into this negative pattern. And, you know, we all make mistakes. We all make bad choices at times. I just want you to learn from it, yeah, I want you to learn from it and try not to make the same mistake again, or, you know,

Sammi: two or three times in a row. That's a pattern, right?

Ros: Picking it up really? Yeah,

Sammi: If we're not making mistakes, we're not learning, yeah, and if we're not making mistakes we're not innovating, and if we're not making mistakes we're not trying new things, yes, yeah. So I think that's mistakes are just the cost of entry.

Ros: Do you see from the work that you've done, and I know you've, you've spent an quite a bit of time in the Eos and visionary integrator sort of models with rocket fuel, the book that I absolutely fell in love with by Gino Wickman. The Do you think that as business owners, we make mistakes, but continue to learn from them? Do you? I mean, do you see that there's a

Sammi: Yeah, I think lots of us make lots of the same version of the same mistake all the time. I do.

Ros: I know bad choices, but I learned from it.

Sammi: Sometimes I'm slow to learn.

Ros: I think that's definitely something. And there are times that I've looked back and gone, oh my gosh. How many times do I need to learn this lesson to know that it does not serve me before I can move forward? And even one thing that comes to mind talking to travel advisors and lessons learned is I now have what I call a no dickhead policy, and it shone very brightly the light during the pandemic, where I thought that I had all these amazing, incredible clients, and there were a few, I mean, there were actually quite a lot that were incredible during what happened during that time, but there were a few that really stood out to me, that I thought, or I believe, To be amazing individuals that turned out to be ourselves, dickheads, in fact. I then carried through that now, where I have this policy that I will not work with people who do not bring a good energy to me, yeah? Or that have bad, you know, the values aren't the same as in alignment with me, or that just are dickheads?

Sammi: Yeah, time is Life is too good. Or for any of that, there's so much going on in that too, though. Ros it's like, okay, you have clarity of what you consider to be dickhead behavior. You know what that looks like, sounds like, feels like. You've now got trust in yourself that when you're detecting Dick header, that you're that you're observing it, and you trusting you're like, Oh, that was a red flag. That was big. That was big enough of a red flag that I don't want to work with that person. But then you also putting trust in yourself, your business, your experience, your expertise, that the right client will drop into that space, which can be really hard to do. I have a picture on my wall by a fashion illustration artist, Megan Hess, and she talked a lot about this, like when she very first got a manager and she was willing to do anything like I will, I will draw anything for anyone. For any brand. And this manager was like, no, no, no, girl, you're going to be pinnacle. You're going to work with these luxury brands. You've got this certain positioning. And the manager had said no to a few pieces of work, and she was like, you know, a starving artist, yeah, yeah. So I remember like hearing her at a talk talk about this and how grateful she was of that manager who who just knew, she knew that there were better things and better opportunities and more aligned clients and higher paying clients in her horizon, and that manager had the trust that it was all going to come together. So it sounds like you're you've got the Trust for yourself,

Ros: Yeah, and but it does take time, and there will be people that that still come into my orbit, and it'll take me a while to go, Oh, that's right. Hang on a second. Not you those values. We are not in alignment. But I I've also learned over the years that there is a client out there for everyone, and my big philosophy in the travel industry is it's collaboration over competition, where we're all here in the same space, we all do similar things in curating incredible experiences for our clients. But there are some clients that will be drawn to you, and there'll be some clients that are drawn to me for different reasons and and whether that's just your ideal client, or the experience that you book or the destination,

Sammi: Yeah, but it's also just like, what's, what's your communication preference of format and frequency, and like so many people, there's so many parts. It's like, oh, you know, this client really only wants to talk to me on this one platform. It's like, I hate using that platform. Like, yeah, it's probably not your client.

Ros: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely and so now, when, when you do what you do now, how does living in alignment with your values? Because we talked about values, how does that help you avoid resentment or fatigue or not doing what you absolutely love?

Sammi: So I'll quickly share those eight tanks that make up the fueled up life. So number one, my relationship with myself, and it sets the tone for every other relationship that I have. Tank number two, is my romantic relationship. So for me, that's my marriage. If you're single and wanting to find a partner, that's that that domain. Tank number three, relationship and network. So my my peers, my friends, my family. Tank number four, my humming household, where I where I live, the environment that I curate for myself. Tank number five, career and business. Tank number six, wealth and lifestyle. Tank number seven, the world and tank number eight, the future. So for me, my really dialed in, fueled up life is having a really good understanding of where all of my tanks are at any one moment in time, and what season of life am I in to reflect which tanks are most important to me right now. I know we all go through lots of different seasons. I've just been through a two month sort of season of the my relationship and network being a core focus. I had a 100th birthday, an 80th birthday, a hen's party, a wedding and then a funeral, like all of those were very relationship and network centric things to that tank, and I poured a lot in for that, which meant that, you know, focusing on getting my will done and updating my insurances for future. Sammi, yeah, not the biggest importance this, this month, this quarter. So I plan my, my day to day life, my personal life, in line with the seasons, so at the change of season. So we're, you know, in Australia, at the moment, we're part way through our autumn season. I'm part way through my Autumn so I set goals, and I check in with myself in these eight tanks and get clear about which ones are most important in this season. What are the things, the goals and things that I'm looking to achieve? What is it that I want to do? What are the priorities and that, you know, that helps me dial back into my values, too. And do I want to live more of this? Do I want less of this? So it's pretty long winded answer, but

Ros: I love that, that I needed the framework, and then the framework and having all eight buckets, in a sense, like when I talked to Jackson, my 10 year old son, I remember him coming home, and it must have been like kindergarten. When he's six, and he started talking about buckets, and how saying something nice to somebody else would fill their bucket, but it would also feel his bucket and and hearing you talk about the eight different facets, I'm like, this is a beautiful expansion on that, because I still talk to him now about, you know, whether his bucket is empty or whether his cups empty, or, you know, him giving me a hug, and I'm like, sweetheart, you've just filled my cup today. Thank you.

Sammi:Yeah, there's just, it's so nice, right? Yeah. And I mean, all of those areas of my life, all of those tanks need fuel, and they need different types of fuel. All. And I think, like, the things that really nourish my relationship with myself are probably not going to be the same things that nourish your relationship with you. Ros like and I might be in a different season where I'm trying to, like, mend something with my relationship with myself, which is where I was when I'd really just decimated. I didn't know myself, I didn't like myself, I didn't have any grasp of who I really was outside of that professional identity, but that was like all of the fuel that I needed then was about mending something, whereas now I'm sort of more about mastering my relationship with myself. And I'm, you know, and I, you know, go through seasons where I need to modify, rather than, you know, something external has changed, I need to modify what kind of fuel I need. But yeah, that framework for me really helps me get clear about what matters to me in in this moment, in this season, and then what am I doing about it? And it's totally okay, like I know, end of last year, my career and business tank was feeling really low. Um, I'd taken some time off. I was feeling quite directionless. And it was, I think it was for our approaching our spring check in. And I was like, You know what? I'm actually okay with that tank staying where it is. We're going to do about changing that tank, but I'm making an intentional choice to leave it as it is, because I've got some other other tanks that I want to pour into and take better care of in this next season. So it's not about having all tanks full all of the time. I just, I don't think that's realistic, and that's not the life that I want to live, like, where I'm, like, transacting with myself all day, every day, checks and balances, but I am, yeah? I want to know where I am, and I want to know how much fuel is in the tank. And I want to know where I'm going, Yeah, and if I've got enough fuel to get there,

Ros: yeah, check in. Check in with yourself. So what advice would you give to somebody who is trying to juggle it all? I know I mean business owners, entrepreneurs, visionaries, travel advisors that are running their own thing. I look at it, and one thing that we do, even within the achievers mastermind, is I say, we're just focusing on one thing at a time, and hearing you about talking about the seasons and focusing on which tank to feel or what needs to be in that season. It makes perfect sense. Yeah, where what we do, it's like, right? This is going to be the season, and the focus on sales, where only focusing on your operations and the systems and processes, we're only focusing on this, because in life, it has to be a balance. There's a lot of things that are going on for so many people that we've got to make sure that there's tanks all getting filled all over the place. But what advice do you have for somebody that is trying to juggle it all?

Sammi: I want to challenge you on one of the words that you use there, yeah, because you said balance. And I just think balance implies that things should be equal. Like, when you get on the scale, it's like, Oh, these are they they're balanced. They're they're never, rather, they never are. No, you know, when I talk about, I life, I want things to be in harmony. I want things to move more fluidly. And like we were talking about earlier with the working from home and working different time zones, I don't, I don't really want to have a rigid structure around. Like, you know, I only work from this one corner of my house, and I close the door at 515 and that's not, like, that's not the life that I'm aspiring for. I'm aspiring for the harmony that I can take a client call while I'm waiting for the chiropractor or taking a walk or, like, I want more harmony and flow, so I want to challenge you on the balance piece.

Ros: But just about other thing, balance and structure. Yeah, talk about a lot, and I think that that's also, and I, I'm happy to to talk about it a bit more. Is there, as travel professionals, we are so structured in what we have to do, right? We cannot miss a payment deadline. We cannot miss a ticketing deadline. There has to be the structure in there. And so for me, when I talk about balance, I hear you with the flow. And I I always talk about the roller coaster, right? We're up and down and all over the place. We are. There is no one stream.

Sammi: And you're working for yourself, right? Like, sometimes it's fair, sometimes it's famine. Like, there's busy periods when, you know, I started my career in the events industry, like that, I relate to a lot of the travel industry nuance of like, these periods of like, flurry of activity, and it's like things can't happen until the last minute. And that is the lot that is when it's happening. You can pre plan as much as you like, but it's happening when it's happening. Yeah? So I relate to all of that, but I think we can leverage that structure to your advantage. So for me, that looks like planning a planning day, every change of season, and because you, you're, I'm sure lots of you are booking events and experiences and travel into 2026 which. 2027 like you gotta work with your calendar. If everything's a yes, that's coming into your calendar, then your calendar is running you. Whereas you really have the chance to work long range and go, Okay, well, when am I going to take time to work on the business, rather than in the business? And when am I going to work take time to work on myself and not just run the day to day and working for yourself. Maybe those days intertwined and it's one. Maybe they're separate. I'm really big on carving out regular clarity breaks. I used to do this on a Friday morning I was having some surfing lessons, so it worked really well for me to go early morning surf and then take myself out for coffee and do some journaling and reflection about what's working what's not. You know, what am I avoiding? Why am I avoiding it? That kind of check, self check in. Take a look at my tanks. You know, am I on track with the goals that I set for myself, personally, professionally, whatever it might be, but I've kind of let that habit slip away as I stopped the surfing lessons, and it's so and that's probably where, like, the modified, where, you know, a system has changed, so I need to modify something. So what was working for me is now not but, yeah, I'm still big on taking the clarity breaks. I just don't have as much rigidity around it, because I don't, haven't got, like, something external for the time, yeah, which can work really well. And maybe that's lots of us working from home, working remotely. Maybe that you need a accountability buddy to, like, body double with you, so that you both have yourself check in, but at the same time together, you know, on Zoom, but silent, whatever, whatever might work for you. But yeah, I really think it's important to be planning in when you're going to plan for yourself, like, yeah, it'd be if you only ever let things happen reactively. That's the way it will stay. You don't ever get intentional about Yeah, what, what your priorities are, what your goals are, what is it that you want out of this next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 365, days.

Ros: We definitely are planners for everybody else, yeah, and, and it's something that we, that I like to talk about with the The Achievers and amongst the community, is plan for your business and plan for yourself. You know, yeah, at that time where you can look at your calendar and say, these are all the things that I I need to schedule in block that time, but then on a quarterly basis, we do it as well. So just having a couple of hours every few months to say, what are the goals for the next quarter, and how are we breaking it down? But what's in that time as well, to work on your business, but also work on yourself. Where are you scheduling that time for yourself?

Sammi: And I totally get that. It feels funny, right? Like, take, like, taking yourself out on a CEO day of your life and of your business to, like, be like, Okay, what am I meant to do now? Like, yeah, maybe you need to draft some questions that you want to ask yourself, you know, every time that you do this. Or maybe you wouldn't. You need a little bit of a process. Maybe it's just taking those eight tanks and checking in whatever it might be, but you know, for me, I'm trying to live in a place where I feel fueled up and I future Sammi is not resentful of past Sammi for decisions that she made. Yeah, yeah. I want to, I want to run on full, not empty,

Ros: Exactly. So the advice there is really just to be able to look at each of those tanks, appreciate where you're at, acknowledge the the choices that you're making and the decisions that you're making, to have your future self. Thank you.

Sammi: Yeah. And if you're honestly, if you're really struggling with this, like get a coach like get you know, if you need third party accountability, find it whether or not that's with me or, you know, a lot of you are probably in Ross's Travel Agent Achievers Program, maybe you've got a peer in there where you can be each other's accountability buddy. But sometimes, if anyone's ever worked with a personal trainer, you know this, like, you'll show up very, very differently when you have booked and paid a personal trainer for a session at the gym. That's a very different session than when you kind of like, roll in there at whatever time you get there and kind of fap about a bit like, they're very different sessions. So if you, if you struggle with that, that commitment, that self commitment, maybe that's a good way to start.

Ros: 100%. So what are you focused on now? Sammi, what is fueled out more doing for you now? And how can people find you and reach out to you? And what are you doing for to support others right now?

Sammi: Yeah, so my home on the internet is sammijaeger.com I'm sure you can find the spelling of that name in the show notes. But I'm probably most active on Instagram. That's really my social media platform of choice, and you'll find me as Sammi somewhere with an eye, which was actually that Instagram handle started because of a travel trip that I was taking to Vietnam in 2014 and I. Just, I'm so attached to that handle now that it's like, gonna stay with me, not gonna go anywhere, yeah, because I'm always somewhere, yeah, send me somewhere. Send me somewhere. So, yeah, that's, that's where you can find me in terms of what I what I'm doing, I'm working on my book, I'm I really hope that I can get some of the ideas and experiences that I've had in the last five, six years, personally and professionally, into a framework that I can hand to someone and go, Hey, you know, here's some tools to help you take better care of your relationship with your yourself, and get intentional about the life that you're creating, and not just the like success porn type fueled up life. But like, what does success actually look like for you? You know, because, like, for some people, like a really fueled up life is being able to pick their kids up from school a couple of afternoons, whereas for other people, it's like, I want to private jet and designer handbags. And I want to, you know, have a team who run my entire business, and I never speak to a client, and that's not success for some other people. So getting really clear about, like, what does a fueled up life look like for each of those different tanks? You know, if your romantic relationship was incredibly fueled up, like, what would it sound like? What would it look like? How often would you be going on dates? How often would you be having sex like, and what would that sex be like like? To really invite people to get curious about what their, their field up life might look like. So that's the hope and plan for the book. And I, I'm, I'm gonna dream big and do a bit of a tour. When it launches, it's a it's a labor of love writing this book. And I wanted to start it a few years ago, but I feel like I'm in a far more I feel like the, you know, I've walked a mile and seen a mile now, whereas if I'd written it when I was in the thick of it, it probably would have been a very different book. Yeah. And then services wise, I do quite a few things. So I do some consulting and freelancing to business owners who want to improve operationally inside, whether that's team health or systems and processes, that type of thing. And then I do some workshops teaching about fueled up life, method and business life and business by design, so you can find all of those good things at sammiejaeger.com

Ros: Thank you, Sammi. I know that you and I had a beautiful chat last year. It was around this time, so 12 months ago, around personal values and business values and just who we are as humans. And I wanted to thank you very much for that, because it was definitely a pivotal time in my life and where I was at, and you were very generous in just listening and giving me a hug and saying, you know, what is it that you want rose where? Where is it, you know, tell me about that gut feeling. So thank you for doing that 12 months on you and I have had the conversation in a completely different space now, yeah, but a pre I really appreciate you, and I love what you do. I've been watching and being part of that journey. I'll be in a very small part for the last number of years, and I wish you absolutely every success. For anybody that is listening to this, that is looking for somebody that knows a lot and has done a lot of things, as I touched on, you know, they're very multi passionate, the integrator work and the visionary work, and even things around, you know, life strategies and all of those tanks. Sammi is your person to go to accountability check in. We will link to where to find her in our show notes. But Sammi, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate you, and I cannot wait to catch up with you in person next, next month.

Sammi: Yeah, thanks Ros, this has been a blast. Alright,

Ros: Alright, everybody, as I said, everything will be in the show notes, but please reach out to Sammi. Let us know as well in the comments that you wherever you find this, reach out to myself. Reach out to Sammi. Let us know that you've listened to this podcast episode, and I really appreciate you being here. Thanks so much, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye, for now. Bye.