201 | Why Travel Creates Clarity, Flow & Better Business Decisions

What if the clarity you're searching for isn't found in another book, podcast, strategy, or course?

In this episode, Erin explores one of the most powerful yet overlooked tools for personal growth, business clarity, creativity, and self-trust: space.

Fresh off a recent trip to Rosemary Beach, Erin shares why travel itself isn't what creates transformation. Instead, it's the intentional slowing down, perspective shifts, and spaciousness that allow us to reconnect with ourselves, access deeper wisdom, and uncover the answers that have been there all along.

This conversation explores why so many entrepreneurs and high achievers stay stuck in cycles of constant consumption, productivity, and doing, and how creating space can unlock clarity, intuition, creativity, and meaningful breakthroughs.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why clarity comes from space rather than more information
• The hidden cost of constant consumption and productivity culture
• How changing your environment creates powerful perspective shifts
• The relationship between intuition, flow, creativity, and self-trust
• Why entrepreneurs often need perspective more than strategy
• Practical ways to create spaciousness without booking a trip
• Reflective questions to help uncover what is no longer serving you

If you've been feeling overwhelmed, stuck, disconnected, or unsure of your next step, this episode will remind you that sometimes the breakthrough you're looking for isn't found in doing more.

It's found in creating enough space to hear yourself again.

If this episode resonated with you, be sure to follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs this conversation.

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Transcript

Why Travel Allows for Breakthroughs

Erin Gray 0:00

Welcome back to Your Money, Your Rules. Today on the podcast, we're talking about something that has consistently been and created some of the biggest insights and breakthroughs and moments of clarity for me in my life and business, and that is travel. And it's not travel as in taking more vacations or booking a trip to find your next big idea, because I don't think it's travel in and of itself that actually does this. It's never the circumstance that ever creates the thing, although that's what we have been taught to believe. It's in our thinking and allowing space that we create when we actually travel. It's the intentions that we set, it's the change of the scenery and the environment that we put ourselves in. It's the contrast, it's the opportunity to step outside of our normal day-to-day long enough to hear ourselves at a deeper level. So let's dive in. A couple

Rosemary Beach And Slowing Down

Erin Gray 0:53

of weeks ago, I returned from Rosemary Beach. It has changed so much in the last 10 years since we visited. We originally took my daughter when she was three and when she was four. And this time, my daughter and I, we met our my parents there and just connected and had a good time. It's such a beautiful place. It's just right up my alley. You don't have to rent a car. You can ride your bike. You can ride the go-kart. The food is amazing. The architecture, it's a beautiful place. It's lovely. Like it's so beautiful and luxurious. Highly recommend 10 out of 10. Check it out. Rosemary Beach is just a stretch. They call it 38. It's a whole stretch of about 20 miles. We didn't stay in Rosemary Beach. We stayed in, I want to say, Seagrove area, but all of it is just absolutely beautiful. So

Set Intentions Before You Go

Erin Gray 1:39

I want to stress here, as I got so many ahas from my trip that I took, I want to stress that it's not actually about the physical travel. Although, you know, Dr. Joe Despenza talks about this, changing environments actually does help because I used to be a person that would take trips and I would have a packed schedule. I would rush from place to place. I would bring my laptop because I had to do payroll when I was on vacation. Had, as in, you know, that's what I thought I had to do. I just had too much control back then. And so I didn't actually let somebody else do it. That's a whole nother topic for another day. But the running joke, and it's not that funny, is that, you know, my backpack always came with me because and I slowed the TSA line down because I always had to take my laptop out and we always had to like check through all of that kind of stuff. And I was that person that would come home feeling exhausted from taking a trip, like even more exhausted than when I left, because I felt like I had to catch up on so much that I missed while I was gone. So it's not travel. I just want to be very clear that I'm not saying like, go travel, go take a trip, and then you're gonna, you know, that is what's going to create the space for you. No, it's not. It is the intention that we set. It is the allowance of space that we give ourselves as we travel that allows our insights and our ahas and all of the things to come through. So when I travel now, I travel what I call very slowly, very intentionally. I come home with pages of notes and ahas and ideas for my business and clients and insights about my life and things that I want to change and simplify. And I always say this, but I feel like I receive like six months worth of coaching in a week worth of travel. I up-level so much. I let go of pieces that no longer serve me. And I really truly feel like I either assume a new identity or let go of my previous identity, however, you want to frame that. But I think that this idea of traveling or what if travel, you want to insert the word space, is something that we as founders are desperately craving and that we need to embody on the regular. Because I think as founders, we're constantly receiving input emails and messages and Slack and notifications and client needs and team needs and family stuff. And just think about all of the areas of your life where you feel needed or that you need to respond. This endless list of things of people that are asking for you and for your attention. And when we're surrounded all by all of that, if we aren't fully anchored in, it's easy to lose that connection with ourselves, or it's easy to, you know, not necessarily be as connected as we want to be with ourselves. And what I have noticed about travel is that the noise gets quieter. It's a space that I intentionally set for myself. Like the intentions that I set before I take a trip are to create more space. And I use that word intentionally, intentionally, because it is really important. Like if you just decide to take a trip and you just think that, you know, you take yourself where you go and you think everything's gonna change, it's not because you're bringing yourself where you go. It is the intentional sitting down before a trip, deciding, okay, how do I want to slow down even more? How do I want to connect to myself even more? How do I want to hear myself and listen to my intuition? What do I want to come through? Like God speak to me and tell me what are the things that I haven't been allowing the space to hear right now, allow me to, you know, allow that to come through. And so setting that intention to reconnect, you know, with what I already know, to be still long enough to hear the wisdom that is asking to come through and to let go of the parts of me. Like one of the things that I said at Rosemary before I went, I was like, I want to let go of the things that no longer serve me. I want to let the old, and I think I said something like, I want to leave the parts of Aaron there that no longer serve her anymore. And that like is, you know, any type of resistance or slowing me down that isn't helpful, like, let's let that go.

Clarity Comes From Stillness

Erin Gray 5:44

And I think some of the, I'm gonna name three lessons here, but I think one of the biggest lessons that travel has taught me is that clarity isn't something that we need to go out and find. You know, I think we're in such a consuming world. And that's not how clarity comes. More often, what I have seen for myself, for clients, is that clarity comes when we allow the space to feel into and to receive the messages that are asking to be heard. Think about how often that we try to solve for problems, right? By gathering more information, or we listen to, you know, we get in our heads and we're in, we get out of our bodies and we're we get into that like pushing energy and forcing, like we want to try to figure it out, you know. So we listen to another podcast or we take another course or we read more books, or you know, we ask our entrepreneur friends, like, what do they think that we should do? Like we're constantly taking energy, trying to figure out what it is when actually what we need to do is go within even more. We need to slow down, we need to really get more still and quiet and ask and talk to God or whatever your relationship is, and and really ask for the support and allow the clarity to come versus trying to push and force it. And I don't think any of us need any more information. Although that's what a lot of people try to sell us. I think we need a lot of room for integration and for reflection. I think we need more room to actually process everything that we already have within us, everything that we've already learned, everything that we already know. What I call like allowing the dust to settle, you know, like, or like the sand to settle, I should say, you know, in like when the ocean and the tide like stirs up that sand and it takes a couple of waves to allow that sand to get back to the ground. Like I think that's is what is being asked of us. And I think so often when we're trying to listen to everyone else and we're trying to do a pod, you know, listen to a podcast, read more books, like going out there and searching and doing all that, we're just continuing to increase the sand in the ocean versus the stillness is actually what creates the sand to settle. So if you are intentional with travel, you actually can create the space to do

Contrast Breaks Old Autopilot Habits

Erin Gray 8:00

this. I think the second thing that I think travel brings, you know, for me or the experiences is the power of contrast. You know, when you're in the same environment, and Dr. Joe Dispenza talks a lot about this of like changing your environment. But when you're in the same environment every day, when we stop noticing things because of our neural pathways, the way that our brains work is, you know, you know, this is just like the pathway that we go on every single like how often do you take a drive home and you're like, how did I even get there? Or, you know, you go into your office and you just like already start, or you get up in the morning, you brush your teeth. Like that's our body taking over because the neural pathway is so strong. Our brains are so efficient at doing the same thing over and over again and as quickly as possible. So we get into our routines, we get into our habits, we get into the way things, you know, like the way that we run and we operate things, even stress, right? Like there are times when I'm in an emotion in an emotional release therapy session, and Stormy will check me and she'll be like, Your body's fine. And it's like, oh, my brain, that's like that's just a habit that I have that it's used to thinking about money, but my body feels completely calm. It's like, how often are we, our brains are serving up something because that's what it's used to thinking, you know, that type of stress that it's used to thinking and and feeling our bodies are feeling because we're thinking that way, versus getting into a different environment and allowing the difference and the contrast allow us to, you know, I think it it really forces us to become conscious. You know, if you think about you have to figure out like how to get from your, you know, a plane to the to the airport to the hotel or to the Airbnb. You have to like figure out what are the the paths that you're gonna take if you're going to the beach or riding your bike. Like there's so many different things that we're having to do and be forced to be conscious and to be present. When I say conscious, what I mean is to be present with ourselves that we don't necessarily, if if we're not intentional about it when we're home, we don't actually have to be. And I think that this allows us to see ourselves more clearly. So keep in mind, I'm not saying travel is what does this, right? Travel is the circumstance. I'm saying that if we are intentional, if we choose to allow travel to create the space, to see what's already there, then we can have profound insights. Can we do this at home? Absolutely we can. Is it more fun to do this in a beautiful place while you're taking care of your body? I think so, 100%. But you obviously have to tap into you. But like travel is a way for me to explore new places, to meet new people, to get out of my routine, to allow for just space, um, that new perspective. And what I have found with working with clients is we don't need more strategy, we don't need more information. What we need is actually perspective. So the third thing I think that that I have noticed with when I travel is it allows me to access more flow. And

Flow, Intuition, And Closing The Gap

Erin Gray 11:02

growing up, I did not travel a lot. So that's probably part of it is I'm very, I should say, not conditioned in traveling because that's not something that we did a lot when I was growing up. So when I travel, it is all very intuitive because there, I don't hear my mom or my dad's um voice in my head very often because it's not something that we did. So I'm able to move so intuitively, which I think that is the way we are meant to move. I don't have all these limiting beliefs and thoughts when it comes to travel that I might have in another area of my life. So going back to travel doesn't create the flow, right? We all know people. My husband used to be one of these people, like travel was very anxiety-ridden for him. And he has had to retrain his body to feel differently about travel. So it's not the travel that creates the flow. I think flow is our natural state. And I think many of us have simply become disconnected to from it because we are so in the in the weeds of everything that we're doing. So just think about how highly intuitive we are and how connected we are to our bodies. And I think that there are still parts of us in our lives where we get reactive. Like we're human, it's part of it. And so we may not be hearing ourselves completely or allow the space and the time to do that. And what I call it is like closing the gap. So the insight and the wisdom, it's always there within you. Like I said, you don't need to go travel to do this. You can do this in your house, you can do this on a walk, you can do this, and and I recommend doing all of those things and also taking yourself out of your environment and go taking some time to travel by yourself. Highly recommend by yourself. But this allows this the space to simply allow us to access it. So although I love beautiful destinations, I don't think that the greatest return is actually the destination. It's the deepest and the deeper connection that we have to ourselves and to our intuition and to our creativity and our own perspective and our own wisdom. So, as I mentioned earlier, travel it happens to be one of my favorite ways to create that. It's certainly not the only way. So go do this at home, practice this on a walk, or through slower mornings, or having more time by yourself just in your own house, or going out and taking yourself out to lunch, or whatever it might be. But the invitation isn't always, it's not to travel more, it's to create more spaciousness and to create more room for yourself and to create more opportunities to hear what is already within

Questions To Create Space This Week

Erin Gray 13:37

you. So I'm gonna leave you with a couple of questions for you to ponder over the next week. Where in your life have you become too close to something to see it clearly? What have you normalized that may no longer be serving you? Another way that I say this is like, what are you tolerating that you no longer want to tolerate? And where could you create a little more space this week in your schedule with yourself, with your mind and your body and in your business, with your spouse, with your children? So just listen, take whatever comes in. I think a lot of times we want to judge it, we want to overanalyze it. Just whatever you heard when I asked those questions, just go with that. Thanks for listening for this week. And

Share, Review, And Get Support

Erin Gray 14:24

if this episode resonated with you, I would love for you to share it with a friend, leave a review, or send me a message and let me know what landed with you. And if you are looking for someone to be a thinking partner with you, to have deeper support around creating more clarity in your business, your life, more capacity in making decisions from a place of real self trust rather than pressure, I would love to connect. Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.