We were lucky to catch up with Bethany Platanella recently and have shared our conversation below.
Bethany, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the toughest things about progressing in a creative career or as an entrepreneur is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
My business started as an Active Retreats company. For over 15 years I’ve worked in various areas of the travel industry while teaching yoga on the side. COVID all but destroyed travel, so I decided to take that time to start my own gig. I wanted to plan and lead unique retreat experiences all over the world. Who wouldn’t sign up for that?? I figured my long time yoga students and friends would be my first clients and this would help to get my business rolling.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
They say “your friends are not your clients” and that turned out to be more accurate than I could have ever imagined. And while I’m not complaining about it, it was a hard truth to digest and it really put the future of my company into perspective. I plugged along for a while, trying to find clients in other ways and becoming increasingly more resentful of my original business idea. In the meantime, I was building up my newsletter and blog, something that was both fun and therapeutic for me. My readers were reacting strongly, and positively, to my writing. I realized maybe this whole experience started as a way to bring me closer to my real calling. I soon pivoted to full time writing and published my first book in September 2023!
Bethany, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m an author, travel planner, and yoga instructor. Long story short, I moved to Barcelona when I was 24 with $8k in savings to learn Spanish. While I didn’t master Spanish, I learned a lot more about life. Like, $8k doesn’t get you that far! I got a job on cruise ships, and here is where my life in the travel industry took off. In order to keep my sanity while constantly flying to different time zones, I made practicing yoga a daily priority. Eventually, I became a yoga teacher and supplemented a rather measly income by teaching classes.
After 10 years of this, I moved to Mexico City, which is where I am today. It’s also where my writing career took off, so I let go of the original idea to run active retreats and dove into writing. I realized I had 2 types of followers: ones who wanted to live my lifestyle vicariously, and others who wanted to know how to spend a weekend in various cities worldwide.
My writing has evolved to accommodate that. If you’re looking for, say, the perfect 2 day itinerary in Istanbul or Havana, my website, https://aweekendawayin.com/, offers personal suggestions from your morning coffee to your evening nightcap. I make it a priority to visit new places, immerse in regional experiences, and find unique things for my readers to do outside of the typical tourist traps.
If what you need is life advice, my newsletter (aka love letter) is basically a diary of what I’m experiencing and learning as I get older. It’s very conversational and vulnerable, and my readers appreciate that. It makes them feel less, well, crazy, knowing that we’re all having similar experiences manifesting in different ways. You can read through my previous love letters and sign up for my almost-weekly-newsletter on my website: https://aweekendawayin.com/love-letters.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Being authentic. My writing is candid and truthful, very relatable. I hide (almost) nothing about what’s going on in my head and my heart, no matter how embarrassing or painful. My readers have often commented that they feel like they’ve had a conversation with me after reading my blog. I love that, it makes me feel closer to them and cultivates a sense of community, oftentimes with people I’ve never met!
I also think being niche is crucial. Uncovering your niche definitely takes time and requires a lot of trust and intuition. It means you’ll have to be open to reinvention of your original idea and be okay with a LOT of changes. This can be really emotional and very confusing, but power through. Your purpose will make itself known and suddenly, all the bumps and bruises will make perfect sense.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
It’s so corny, but I have always turned to Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” when I’m in a state of limbo. This book never fails to remind me that even though life is full of twists and turns, you will always end up where you need to be. It helped me immensely both when I started my business and when I had to shift to make that business work. It’s so easy to get caught up in unnecessary details as an entrepreneur, and this story forced me to stop analyzing the little things, zoom out and see the bigger picture. I was able to accept that Plan A wasn’t a failure, it was simply a stepping stone toward my ultimate goal: providing a product that my clients want and need while fulfilling my own purpose.
Which turned out to be, a book! “Wander Lust: A sassy, sexy memoir of my journey from the known to the wild unknown” is available now on Amazon, scribd, and Apple Books.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://aweekendawayin.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aei.loveletters/
- Other: My book: https://a.co/d/1RCFiwH
Image Credits
Bethany Platanella