The Value of Travel

In this episode of the Bringing Up Business podcast, host Kaila Sachse speaks with hotelier Jelani Millard, founder of the Wapechi Collection, about the intersection of business, parenting, and travel. 

Jelani shares his journey from finance to hospitality, the importance of creating unique guest experiences, and how travel has shaped his worldview. He emphasizes the significance of travel in education and personal growth, while also providing practical tips for families looking to explore the world on a budget.

More About Jelani Millard

Jelani humbly describes himself as an all-weather, maneuverable, and authentic professional who has worked in the finance industry for a bountiful amount of years. He currently mixes that knowledge with his passion for travel by venturing into the hospitality sector via The Wapechi Collection. He recognizes that, in order to operate and deliver outstanding results, it is vital to have a balanced team, efficient project management, and crisp data analysis.

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Transcript

Kaila Sachse (00:05.774)
Hello from the Bringing Up Business podcast, where we talk about business and parenting. I'm your host, Kaila Sachse, owner of a creative and marketing agency called Yumari Digital that specializes in websites, marketing campaigns, and branding. I am also a toddler mom. Today's guest, Jelani Millard, has a ton to bring to the table, and I recommend listening very closely to what he has to share. He humbly describes himself as an all-weather,

maneuverable and authentic professional who has worked in the finance industry for a bountiful amount of years. He currently mixes that knowledge with his passion for travel by venturing into the hospitality sector with the Wapechi Collection. He recognizes that in order to operate and deliver outstanding results, it is vital to have a balanced team, efficient project management and crisp data analysis.

Jelani, I look forward to chatting with you and welcome to the show.

Jelani (01:08.073)
Hi, Kaila. How's everybody doing? I'm glad to be on this podcast to kind of share an insight in mixing business and also family and the importance of travel all in one. So I'm very excited to be here with you.

Kaila Sachse (01:21.294)
excited. Let's go. First, let's dive into your background. Help our listeners get to know you a little bit more. Where and how did your career start and what has that journey been like up to this point?

Jelani (01:36.505)
Yeah, so I'm Jelani and I'm the founder of the Wapechi Collection, which is a investment firm, but it strictly focuses on the travel and hospitality sector. My background way back in the day, I actually went to university and my study was mathematics. So I was poising myself to become an actuary. So after university, I did about two years in like a rotational program.

in the insurance actuarial world where basically like an intern, they pay you to study and do all these different high model calculations, which now I believe chat GPT can do in an instant. Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (02:16.301)
Twist, shank and twist. I'm like watching that happen in certain things that I do, like copywriting for example. Just chat GBT at people. Let's be honest, you can come to me and pay me to do it, but chat GBT can do it too.

Jelani (02:24.651)
Yeah, just chat, Jimmy T.

Yeah, and it's rather interesting because the way, least back when I used to write those exams, you had to, it was a 30 question exam, six hours sit, and you had to memorize all the formulas. So I wonder how that looks now in this new landscape, this new environment. I've always just like in the back of my head, even though I'm so far removed from it, I've always wondered what it looks like right now. But.

Kaila Sachse (02:52.895)
Yeah. man, we could dive down the rabbit hole of AI. We're gonna keep, stay on course, stay on course. It's really easy for me to get distracted. I'm like, squirrel, and let's talk about this topic. But no, we're gonna focus. Okay, so tell us more. Okay, so you were studying in school, then what happened?

Jelani (02:59.897)
Yeah.

Jelani (03:06.489)
Yeah

Jelani (03:11.385)
Yeah, basically went into auditing and finance, worked for about three different firms, was blessed enough to see at least two of them exit. And then one of them kind of really just grow into something even larger as they've scaled out their operations globally. And I would say somewhere around 2020, 2021, I had decided I wanted to merge my love for finance and travel and hospitality into one. This all becomes the WaveT collection, which we

have an 18 room or 18 keys, as they say in the industry, room property in Ghana and so in Kokopiti Beach, Ghana. So 45 minutes outside of a crop. So you never get to go. It's a nice sleepy surf town. It's comfortable. Everybody, every villa has its own plunge pool. And so you kind of get to really rest and relax and take part in the African continent. And then also we dive into travel tech investments such as

Airjoy, MayaTravel.ai, which is like an AI chat bot for the hospitality industry and hotels and such. But it just allows me to kind of play in a field that is really sort of a passion, which is travel. That's it.

Kaila Sachse (04:22.71)
Yeah, my goodness. you mentioned two, let's go back a little bit, you mentioned two of those companies got to exit. What did that exit look like? What was your role in that?

Jelani (04:34.669)
Yeah, so there was an insurance tech company called Cover Wallet. They were in the forefront of basically blending all of the insurance packages that a business may require into one sort of technology sort of offering. And what I was doing there was in as in any startup company, you're holding a bunch of different roles. So originally I was there for as their accountant that grew into sort of their treasury to their

and to do management, ARAP, eventually moving into the FP &A side, running into the M &A side. basically our team of four solid financial individuals grew to about, I'd say 10 to maybe 11, and that's across two different offices. One that was based in the city, I'm based in New York, and then one that was based in upper New York, like Rochester, of Canada and everything. And the exit was,

a first for me. It's a risk. Anybody who jumps into a startup company was a first for everybody kind of experiencing this sort of, you know, what it means when another big, large firm and the firm that acquired Coverwild was Aon, which is the Ford of insurance. You know, they're kind of the big kahuna who saw value in what Coverwild was, you know, sort of delivering to its own customers into the market. And

That process was, when I think about it like in reality, the process was hectic. Everything happening fast, due diligence happening fast, questions are being asked. I mean, when you sit in the finance side of it, everybody's grilling you. The three teams that get grilled the most is finance, HR, and legal. Like, what are you guys all doing? What does this really mean before we get to all the other sort of projectionary sort of divisions, right?

Kaila Sachse (06:22.827)
Mm-hmm.

Kaila Sachse (06:30.324)
Mm-hmm.

Jelani (06:30.955)
And so it was very hectic. was very much like, everybody has to get like, you know, their ducks line in a row. But once you do, and then once you kind of present that to your leadership or even to sort of, I guess, the firm at hand, and once it's all completed, it was an exhale and say, wow, okay. And then also just like the personal achievement, you know, accomplishment of that. you know, I was, I don't know, I'm bad with my age, but.

Kaila Sachse (06:37.013)
Yeah.

Jelani (07:00.473)
I was probably, it was my like third real sort of, you know, corporate environment experience. And I would, I would have to say that it definitely like personally was like a great achievement to say, okay, wow, over the last, you know, 24, 36 months, we've kind of like scaled this company to something that is like now to be valued by somebody else's eyes, you know, that's like not your own mom. So it's like, wow, this is beautiful.

Kaila Sachse (07:00.724)
Bye.

Kaila Sachse (07:25.936)
Right? You have more customers than just like your friends who are trying to support you.

Jelani (07:30.582)
Yeah.

Exactly. And I give all credit to the co-founders who kind of built that company. And then also I give credit to one of the co-founders who saw at least value in me to kind of like help them on the phantoms side, of transfer that business off to the next sort of leader.

Kaila Sachse (07:52.202)
Yeah, I can imagine that would feel amazing. And earlier you mentioned wearing many hats, being in a startup. And I giggled to myself because I remember being in a situation at my last, my last and I wouldn't say only nine to five, I worked nine to five before that, but the last one before I jumped ship. And it was like, I was doing design. That's why I initially entered, but then now I'm answering phones and.

Jelani (07:58.723)
Yeah.

Jelani (08:11.832)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (08:18.598)
and doing AP or AR and now I'm doing shipping. And it was like just more and more being piled on because like the skill set allowed for that to be able to happen. And what's really cool about working in a startup environment is that you do get to learn all of those skills and take them with you into your next thing. So it's a huge growth opportunity. So tell us how was that company able to scale from your perspective?

Jelani (08:19.011)
Yeah.

Jelani (08:39.757)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (08:48.135)
What do you think contributed to that success?

Jelani (08:52.333)
The self-creative community, lot of individual, the entrepreneurship community, everybody around that time were starting businesses and with those businesses, these unique, also not only just your traditional sort of small business on the corner, they're starting all these unique businesses that don't require necessary real estate footprint, but they're very, you know, risky. And now there's a need to have insurance and need to get

Make sure you have your general liability insurance, make sure all these little things are, you've now taken employees and so you have to have their sort of insurances covered. All these different sort of elements become, kind of start pouring into the market. And so that was where I really saw the value proposition with CoverWallet as like, hey, you're tapping in to something that is almost a zeitgeist. Like this is not.

I don't know if it's maybe a mentality shift. A lot of individuals were like, instead of me, instead of them trying to fit themselves into some other organization, they'd rather just start their own. And with that comes all the different regulatory requirements, such as having insurance. And that's a way for a firm as large as Aon to tap into this and also to do it without having to expense all of the technology.

that would have been required for them to build such a seamless product for potential customers. Like this is something that they can already get into, it's already developed, it's already proven it works. And yeah, it's just an easy way to sort of buy into this new sort of market.

Kaila Sachse (10:40.967)
Yeah, yeah, it sounds like they were listening to what the market needed and they helped fulfill that need in a very seamless and easy way for their customers. It's like business 101, right?

Jelani (10:51.723)
Yeah, it is. is, you know, instead of, you know, look, sometimes if you see somebody doing something great, instead of trying to compete against them, it might be better to just to join up with them and say, right.

Kaila Sachse (11:00.135)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. No, it's true, it's true. Why reinvent the wheel? The wheel's already been invented. Go link up and make it work. Yep, or if you're going to go in a different direction, create your own blue ocean and create a completely different product and disrupt the industry. So, know, beat them or join them.

Jelani (11:09.337)
There it is.

Jelani (11:18.872)
Yes.

Jelani (11:23.115)
Yeah, beat them or join them is kind of the same old same old adage there. Yeah, so I completely agree. You know, it's easier to do it that way because it's such a learning curve to build something on your own, even for a company that you know, with that, that sort of amount of power and market cap. mean, to spend that money, like not every company can be Apple where they build everything internally and want to sort of, you know, figure it out and then come out with a bang, like not every company has that time to do that. So

If you take advantage of the innovation that's within this country, within also this sort of economy, you might as well tap into these innovators who have sought it, who figured it out. They went through all the problem solving sort of case studies and scenarios to say, right, here's a neatened product that with maybe your input or even touch, we can even make it better.

Kaila Sachse (12:18.086)
Yeah, yeah, I'm hearing another fundamental there where instead of... When we go into business for ourselves, whether we're freelancing or we're starting a business with employees, a team, sometimes we can get caught in the trap of thinking, okay, it's cheaper if I just DIY it, right? And part of DIY is that spending the time and the energy to learn all of the things in order to be successful in whatever...

that arena is, when instead, if you have the capital, just deploy that. Delegate somebody else who's way smarter than you to do it. Yeah.

Jelani (12:56.259)
Yeah, it's part of community. I mean, it's the reason why we do go to the auto mechanic to say, hey, look, there's something wrong with the car. I don't know. I don't have the wherewithal knowledge to be able to fix it or even diagnose it. You took time to understand this everything. I trust you. Therefore, I'd rather you guys deliver on this service. And it's not, know, that's just kind of like the bare bones sort of like, you know.

Kaila Sachse (12:59.601)
Right.

Kaila Sachse (13:03.847)
Right.

Jelani (13:24.885)
sequence I think that that that know that that's what it kind of serves instead of like trying to you know solve your carburetor, barber it is herself whatever it is in the car you know you'll be there for years trying to figure this out.

Kaila Sachse (13:41.835)
Especially a carburetor, we don't see those anymore. So if your car has one of those, yeah, you need somebody specialist to go to. No, that's a great analogy. So, okay, fast forward. Now we're starting Wepechi. How do you transition? How does one transition from finance to hospitality? I mean, what was that segue? What inspired it? Tell us.

Jelani (13:44.462)
Yeah, there you go see I don't know

Jelani (14:04.738)
Yeah.

Jelani (14:09.977)
Okay, what inspired it for sure was I grew up traveling.

My parents, thank God, we grew up modestly, but my dad is effectively was like a salesperson. So we would get a lot of points. So when we did travel, I always joke and say we were like the Kardashians. They would roll the red carpet out for us. So, you know, it felt pretty good to kind of be on the, on the other side of the fence there. So we traveled a lot when we were younger. So the bubble was burst very early. So I kind of, you know, it like, wow, this is very interesting. I like exploring other different.

communities and cultures and stuff like that. And so as I grew older, I tried to continue the tradition. Not so much in college. I was broke as a joke, but a little bit after college, we had a little bit of disposable income. Took my first solo trip to Iceland, took a few other solo trips, like just a little bit like to DC and stuff like that. It just stayed with me. You I like being in new environments, things of that nature. When it got to

Kaila Sachse (14:49.7)
Yeah.

Jelani (15:09.759)
Well, let me jump, let me go a little bit back. Anytime we travel, we stay at really nice hotels, again, due to the, just the travel velocity that my dad was able to, kind of monetize. So I grew a love for hotels. So when I got to about my mid twenties, I decided I wanted to invest in hotels. wanted to become a hotelier. That's where.

this whole operation started was how do you do it? Well, you need to have an investment firm. You need to have certain capital involvements. This is where Wavecheek sort of begins its founding. Okay, now how do you learn how to do this? So everything is based off location, location, location, or I like to say location, attraction, and attention. Find the particular market that you like. For me, I just saw that Ghana was really on a hot streak. And this is where I would love the first investment for the Wavecheek collection to sort of...

stake a claim. And that's kind of where it works. So we have a great capital partner out there, Matt Capital, that also sort of partners with us in this investment, 18 Keys, beautiful villas. We built them roughly within about a year or so, year and a half. like the full fleet, some were active, some were inactive at the time. And this was sort of the beginnings of the

Kaila Sachse (16:22.128)
Wow.

Jelani (16:32.185)
travel, hospitality, investment. So the transition took time because like coming up with the idea was in 2021, but the launch wasn't really like 2022, 2023 in its full sort of aspect. And I will say that it's not so different from the finance field. The metrics are still vital and you still have to pay attention to your P &L to different particular metrics such as RevPAR and ADR, occupancy rate runs the whole industry. But the

analytical thinking is sort of still in play. So it wasn't much of a transition. It was just a transition from being sort of being in a set system when I was in sort of the corporate side of it. And now it's, I've created my own system and this is how we kind of going to do things, but it's still same with that analytical drive and positioning.

Kaila Sachse (17:22.585)
Right, right. Did you have to run any sort of comps in order to best understand how to invest in this? What the final property was going to look like? What did that look like?

Jelani (17:35.543)
Yeah. Yeah. Tons of years of R and D, I would say. mean, mean, start with just novelization. mean, J.W. Marriott, the founder of Marriott was one of the good ways to sort of figure out how to build this business because he took it from his father. He grew it out there, but he was the one who really kind of laid the land for hospitality industry is like, this is how we go from being one singular property to a property around a brand across the whole globe. Right.

Kaila Sachse (17:40.185)
Mm-hmm.

Jelani (18:02.681)
And so that was kind of foundation. within just the history of Weibchi, with Ghana, we're looking at the area around. So you had to look at like the comps around other different hotel or B &B properties sort of in the area, but also taking into account the truth, the Gehenian tourism metrics. These are things that really kind of laid a land how many domestic travelers or arrivals are happening.

in Ghana or Accra to be sort of, I guess, like microscopic here, Accra or how many international arrivals are happening? How much tourism dollars are being spent at a particular area? This is where you start to derive like, is this a valuable sort of, you know, sort of investment? And it becomes, there is no set book as in like, hey, fill out the spreadsheet and this will tell you yes or no, do it.

most of the times they'll tell you no. This is not a good thing. Don't do it. It makes no sense. But this is where like the FDNA comes in and you say, all right, I got to project. This is what I believe is going to happen in the next five, you know, three to five years is building hospitality. And it's safe to kind of say, you know what, even though perhaps it's going to be shaky or rocky, I believe it's going to be worth it in the long.

Kaila Sachse (19:29.764)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, so you have to have almost a split-brain approach to becoming a hotelier, right? So you're first doing all of that R &D, all of that data, culling all of the data, analyzing it, running the deal, making sure that it's actually going to make sense in the long term. But then also, you have to design a property that's actually attractive.

Jelani (19:44.941)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (19:57.998)
right, that people actually want to stay at and then remain at. So what has that process been like?

Jelani (19:59.289)
Very true.

Jelani (20:04.663)
Design is the funnest part, but we have good collaborators. So we used a few designers to create very wooden prefabricated structures with obviously the plunge pool and things that kind and it's obviously on the beach. So it's very much a picturesque environment that kind of brings you into, that brings the traveler or the traveler into sort of the Coker Beat Day environment.

Kaila Sachse (20:06.424)
Yeah, I agree.

Jelani (20:32.768)
What's more important than the design element that kind of sells the client is definitely the customer experience. So yeah, it is a split brain where like we have to look at it from sort of a on book, like what should be the hardcore numbers, but also to really validate those numbers is you also need to have sort of this experience that makes, that makes it kind of worth it, you know, for the price that these customers are going to pay for the investment that you're actually putting into to kind of make sure that five years, you know, it looks.

as you anticipate it, you need to have an experience that matches that, that kind of justifies that. And so what we do is we have surf lessons, add like, you know, access to the art galleries out there in Ghana, we add access to cultural experience, community experiences, such as if you go to Ghana, drumming is a very big thing. So you can have a unique, authentic drumming experience. These are things that most...

a really compassionate hotelier would do because hospitality at its core is a people business. It's just it's all about who are you partnering with? Who are you working with? Who can you trust? It's not necessarily we're going to go to the largest tour operator because they're the largest one. They're the big the big kahuna. No, we might want to go with just, you know, the regular kid down the block who's just starting his business, but he offers an experience to our customers or to anybody who's traveling to to our property that really kind of makes it.

Kaila Sachse (21:35.277)
Mmm.

Kaila Sachse (21:46.595)
Hmm.

Jelani (21:58.933)
a really value add because at the end of the day, travel is a luxury. Nobody really, it's becoming a luxury. And the thing is you have to really fight for that luxury now. So that's why it's really just, it is a split as you pointed out perfectly, it's a split thing. I was looking at it, I Mondays is the money, Tuesdays is okay, what's happening here? Wednesdays you go back to the money, Thursdays you figure out how to make the experience great.

Kaila Sachse (22:09.74)
Hmm.

Kaila Sachse (22:22.626)
You

Jelani (22:25.571)
So it kind of gives us a good balance approach. then Fridays are open. What's left on the board and we'll figure it out.

Kaila Sachse (22:31.23)
Yes, yes, mean, that resonates too with how I schedule my business and my life too. Everything has a bucket or a segment in my schedule so that I can best focus on whatever that task is. Yeah, that's super helpful. Now tell us a bit about the vetting process for the people in...

Jelani (22:47.171)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (22:54.004)
your business? mean, how do you is it instinctual? there are there check marks that you go down the list? Like, how do you know when you're hiring somebody that makes sense for your business?

Jelani (23:03.169)
Yeah, it's definitely, no, there is a process. I'll lay out two different sort of ways it can work. Most times it's a process. Who are you? What do you want to offer? Maybe you give us an example of how you offer that. Also, here's our ethos, here's the wa pechi ethos. Here's how we like to do things. Here's what's expected from our visitors. Can you match that? Where do we actually sort of align in this process?

Also then its availability comes into play because when you have 18 keys, everybody's happening at different times. How large of a scale operation do you have that kind of matches the operation size that we have? So we need to make sure that we're aligned from like an availability wise, right? Then in terms of just sort of the experience for the customer is based off of when the customer is actually sort of going to

enjoy your drumming experience or yoga for that matter. What's the takeaways? there something that you that that individual operator offers that the next operator can't? again, I might not be the the we have we have other, you know, people who kind of delegate sort of that thinking to who know maybe like, take for example, a yoga experience. I'm not the most profound in yoga, but I do. That's why it's a community has somebody else who knows more about yoga. Okay, what can

this particular yoga instructor provide that's a little bit different from the next or the, or sort of like this, the status quo. So, um, there's that sort of element that all comes into play. Sometimes we do have individuals who we already work with who recommend us and say, Hey, I know this person, they're looking to do this. So we do is we give them a trial run for maybe a few experiences, see if anybody wants to book that experience. It's all complimentary because, um,

That's just the way that we look at it. It's like when you're a guest at a wave cheap property, all you have to do is bring yourself and that's it. And that's all you got to do. Everything else is covered. It's all sort of a, you know, featured in sort of the package. And so if somebody wants to sign up for that experience and sort of give it a try, great. If it goes, if we're starting to see, look, this is ticking up then, Hey, you fall back into that first bucket of how do we make this actually work? on a consistent basis, and also it's better for us because

Jelani (25:27.905)
It's better to have long-term partnerships. it's rarely, you don't want to, you know, do a sort of a, it's not the most ideal to often experience for such a short time or, know, you're having too many experiences. Nobody. So when your clients come to your property, they can't really rely on well, what's going to be offered. It's like, Hey, look, sometimes wherever you go and you probably have this with, when you travel, there's certain things like, Hey, I know when I go here, even if I don't use it, I know that X, Y, and Z are going to be offered there. And that's kind

Kaila Sachse (25:56.96)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jelani (25:57.527)
try to do. So long-term partnerships are sort of the thing. yeah, that's kind like the bifurcation of the process there.

Kaila Sachse (26:03.968)
That makes sense, that makes sense. And I love your approach to luxury in bundling everything together. Your client just has to show up. That's it, the guest shows up, everything else is like a buffet, right? They can just pick and choose, do whatever they like. I had a similar experience traveling like that. was a few years ago, we went to the Philippines, specifically we went to the island of Shergal, and we stayed at this.

Jelani (26:13.645)
Just show up.

Jelani (26:18.015)
Everything else is a buffet.

Kaila Sachse (26:31.423)
beautiful B &B. was a single door property, but it was inclusive with cooks, with people who helped clean up the place and keep it tidy. 24-7, around the clock, people were buzzing in the background, making sure the household kept running. And there were surf lessons that we got to do and island tours, all kinds of stuff that was involved in staying at this property. And I will never forget that because it made our trip

so much more rich. mean, they designed it in a way that was even more than I ever could have designed it for myself as a traveler. And also it took out all of that extra guesswork, all of the moving parts. So now if you want surf lessons, you gotta go down the street to this guy and pay him and now you gotta arrange a time. And for Weipichi, it's like they just show up, everything's done.

Jelani (27:20.185)
Great.

Kaila Sachse (27:25.066)
bada bing, bada boom. There's no extra, extra, you're taking out all of that extra guesswork that is the harder part of travel, I would say.

Jelani (27:26.809)
Yeah.

Jelani (27:37.123)
No, and your experience is exactly what it should be. It should be something where when you're, like when you travel, you kind of want to not have to be so concerned with day to day and not to be concerned with, you know, for your example, like the surf operator, you don't want have to go somewhere else and see, okay, is this even a good surf operator to go with? Am I being charged the right amount? Those extra things, even though certain people can handle it.

Kaila Sachse (27:49.364)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (27:59.679)
Great! Yeah!

Jelani (28:06.027)
it can still be just not as restful or relaxing. And then it also sort of applies a bit of a pressure that I think that you don't want to have when you're traveling, right? And so get away from the mundane. You want to get away from it. You want to finally take that deep breath and do something that you probably wouldn't have done on a regular day.

Kaila Sachse (28:10.077)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (28:18.847)
That's why we're traveling. We're trying to get away from that. Yes.

Jelani (28:32.323)
How often can you go to have a decent surf lesson? You don't want to be able to, you know.

boggle your mind down with that as you're on the trip, maybe before, but not definitely.

Kaila Sachse (28:44.734)
Exactly, exactly. Okay, so take us back. You're traveling as a kid. At what age do you know of that your parents, like when was it that your parents took you traveling for the very first time? Where was it?

Jelani (28:59.961)
Okay, I'm gonna go and I was like, I'm gonna start with like when I was conscious. I know they probably did it before but I remember Disney World was the first one I remember. That was the one where I like me and my sister, mom pops, we all went to Disney World. We had the whole Disney World experience. was gosh, I don't even know when but this was back when I was a young buck. Back when my knees didn't hurt. yeah, it was one of those experiences where

Kaila Sachse (29:05.127)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kaila Sachse (29:22.419)
Yeah.

Jelani (29:29.601)
I just remember like, you know, out of all the, we did a lot of stuff at Disney World, but I remember the, just having fun at the hotel. Like we were all playing cards. We were all just like, we had like, we had this big old jacuzzi and like, I made a mess with the water. Everyone was like laughing about it. It was just like, it was just warm. It was like this gathering. And even though Disney World was fun and everything, but like, it just felt kind of, you know, good to feel like a family, you know? And that was, that was probably,

Kaila Sachse (29:55.762)
Yeah

Jelani (29:59.969)
The one I can remember, I'm very sure if you asked my family about it, they would probably be like, we went out of place in Fort Dixie.

Kaila Sachse (30:06.419)
Yeah, it's so funny. So that's a note for all parents who are listening. You could just take your kid to a hotel. You don't even have to get to Disney World and it'll still be a great memory for your kid. Don't even bother going to the actual place. Like just go to the hotel, any hotel.

Jelani (30:15.801)
That's very true. I stan it. I approve it. I approve that message.

Kaila Sachse (30:26.269)
my goodness. Okay, so growing up, how did travel shape your worldview? Because I imagine that it did, right? When we go out and we experience other cultures and we see new things, we are bound to bring new ideas home with us. So what can you remember about traveling as a kid?

Jelani (30:35.929)
Yeah.

Jelani (30:47.577)
first thing I remember was that the world was bigger than my neighborhood. You know, I was, you know, because when you're younger, everything just weighs a lot more. Your friends weigh a lot more. Everything that's happening around you is just heavier homework, every, don't know, whatever's happening in school, all this stuff. And you kind of become.

Kaila Sachse (30:51.231)
Mmm.

Jelani (31:07.905)
like sort of jailed in that. And you think like, this is it, you know, it's like, all right, it's just me, my best friend, and that's it. And like, we're against the world. then, but like, you know, when the summertime come and you get that one week and you kind of get to go away and go somewhere completely differently and you're by yourself. I mean, you're with the family, but you're truly by yourself. You don't know anybody around you. You don't know what's even going on. Everything that's going on doesn't look like anything of your neighborhood or even what you're familiar with.

Kaila Sachse (31:36.785)
Yeah.

Jelani (31:38.528)
And just because of that, start to, I don't know if it's, and I'm not a psychologist or even into like, understanding like the mind, like those little moments you started to think like, wait a minute, okay, this is different. Like, and then you'll see another, in my case, like another young boy who's living a completely different life than you. And you're like, wait a minute, they don't go to, they don't have Ms. Becky for school. Like they're a teacher. Like this is a different.

whole environment, everything's so unique. And I think it just creates an inner humility inside of all of us where just because of that experience, the bubble becomes burst. I said that earlier, like the bubble becomes burst where you're not so attached to your day to day. you understand, okay, there's other things happening, there's other elements of organisms that are going on and the world is bigger than just me and my family or me and my neighbor.

Kaila Sachse (32:12.926)
Yes.

Jelani (32:36.225)
And so definitely that's kind of the biggest takeaway I can make.

Kaila Sachse (32:36.293)
Yes.

Kaila Sachse (32:41.651)
that's huge. That's definitely something I've experienced as well with travel where I've been to different countries like Mexico, Philippines, Thailand, recently Italy, Croatia. And you see how other people are living and they're moving right along. Like there is nothing just because they're not living the way that I live here in Southern California.

their lives, their world still keeps spinning despite the differences in how we choose to live. some of this personal choice, lot of that is cultural societal created, right? And that is humbling to realize that my way of living isn't the only way. My way of seeing the world isn't the only way to see the world. There are other perspectives in our larger collective.

Jelani (33:23.267)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (33:38.02)
And ultimately, what's crazy is that we're all connected. No matter where you go.

Jelani (33:41.697)
Yeah, most and you're right, everything that you're saying is right. Most people experience that if they can experience that it's when they get to college, when they're really kind of in a whole new environment. But, you know, for families if they can, you can get you can lend that experience to your your to your children at a younger age by just traveling somewhere outside of their neighborhood and where where they're, they're going to have to learn that and really learn to communicate with

Kaila Sachse (33:53.819)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (34:06.481)
Yes.

Jelani (34:11.415)
you know, people have never met before or, you know, better understand sort of a different environment. It's just, it's, I think it's just a rich, it's a rich way of teaching, you know.

Kaila Sachse (34:26.396)
100%. I just recently traveled with my toddler and right now he is in this really cool spongy stage of learning his ABCs, one, two, threes, you know? And here at home, we have a really cool, it's like a wooden board puzzle with the letters and numbers that are like blocks of wood that fit into their spaces, right? So it's A, B, C, one, two, three, da, da, da.

Jelani (34:36.333)
Yay.

Jelani (34:52.025)
you

Okay.

Kaila Sachse (34:54.645)
And that's how he was first learning his ABCs and one, two, threes. But going out into the world, now he's seeing signage and he's seeing, there are letters and numbers up on walls and there's a billboard over there. wow. It's on the streets. Like these numbers and letters live in the world. And I can see the gears spinning and him making the connections. And over time, he's actually started to point it out.

Jelani (35:18.987)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (35:23.513)
Letters, letters. He calls them EOS. I don't know why or how, where that came from. He goes, EOS, EOS. And I'm like, yeah, that's right, baby. You see them right there. This is stuff that me as an adult, I take for granted. I go out into the world and my brain within two seconds processes that sign that says restaurant. For him, he's seeing the letter R, the letter E, and it's connecting those fundamentals in a very specific way.

Jelani (35:26.936)
You

Jelani (35:38.2)
Yeah.

Jelani (35:45.048)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (35:53.724)
Now, move forward and you have an older kid and they're making different types of connections based on what they've learned at home versus what they see out in the world. Maybe it's how we interact with each other. So I'll say, hey, Jelani, it was so nice meeting you. Thank you so much for being on the show. I go out into the world in a totally different culture and say Jelani is now Croatian.

Jelani (35:54.071)
Right.

Jelani (36:06.125)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (36:24.175)
Jelani, Vala, which means thank you. It was, you know, and I'll say maybe in like an English-Croatian mix, like, thank you for your time today, right? But my kid gets to hear that and realizes, the cadence of that conversation was similar to at home. But mom is still saying thank you. This was a nice interaction.

Jelani (36:32.438)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jelani (36:48.793)
about that. Yeah, that's the end of the thing about it from that way. Yeah, the cadence is very important. But like I just said, the translations from the board to the billboard or to the the the signage. They're the same sort of sort of mechanism, but it's happening in different fronts, right? That's I didn't think about it from that perspective. But like, even when you know how you how you say thank you in in, you know, our our dialect, maybe another one is different. but you don't

Kaila Sachse (36:48.955)
There's some-

Jelani (37:18.615)
you process like, they're saying something that's very genuine and nice and it sounds something similar to sort of what I've been used to or what they're used to. And so I agree with that. I completely agree with that. I didn't make that connection. So I appreciate that one. Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (37:32.663)
interesting, right? It's so interesting to watch through the lens of a parent and see our kid figure out the world. And their little brains, I mean, they're soaking everything up. Again, the Eos thing, I don't know where he got that from, but he got it from somewhere. He sponged it from somewhere.

Jelani (37:47.865)
Somewhere. He got it from somewhere.

Kaila Sachse (37:53.294)
You

Man, tell me about what your travels have been like recently and what the future of travel is looking like for you.

Jelani (38:07.833)
So recently I just came back from Frankfurt. We were out there for some business, but I guess like on a larger scale was Cape Town. I do frequent Cape Town quite a number. I do love South Africa a lot. But I would say being in Frankfurt was unique. One pick up I took from Frankfurt was how organized the city is. It was just beautifully organized. Let me tell you how beautiful New York is.

close to LA, the airport was seamless. Airport process was seamless. And I was just enamored with how seamless this process that I'm so used to is like, it's cumbersome, but it can be a headache for most. And so to kind of go to this other major city, it's a diamond for Europe.

to sort of go in and just have this seamless process go through was very impressive. Maybe that's just my little spotlight on Frankfurt's airport, but Frankfurt as a whole was very beautiful too.

Kaila Sachse (39:17.199)
It is a good one. did just go through their airport. is beautiful. I agree.

Jelani (39:21.089)
Yeah, there you go. So you know what I'm talking about. But yeah, no. In terms of Frankfurt, it was was one of a wonderful city to be in. I don't speak German, but was able to sort of parlay a little bit, you know, back when I was there, this was a brief second. But one thing I did appreciate, though, and this is the importance of travel, one thing I took back away took back with me was I went to a cafe, ordered me a little

bit of matcha. I love matcha latte, so I got me matcha latte. And they handed me a regular cup. So I was done. And they said, hey, when you're done, you don't have to throw it away or give it back. This is a cup you use. You go to the next cafe, and they'll wash it out, and there'll be one another latte. They'll fill it in there. And they call it Re-Cup.

Kaila Sachse (40:13.882)
Jelani (40:14.201)
And I said, wow, this is an amazing system in this because if they say, you know, this is a way to reduce sort of trash or even sort of, know, to reduce any sort of like, you know, it pretty much ain't trash. It's like, it's it's a sustainability effort. Right. And it was one of the things I said, wow, I I just never had that in any other place that I was going. And I've been in other European countries, but I didn't get that experience, but Frankfurt had that. it's, it's done on a small scale in this, you know, Frankfurt's a small city.

but it's on the small scale and I wonder if that can be extrapolated. But this is kind of like the point of travel where it's so important because you can have that experience and say, maybe we can do this somewhere else. This is exactly how Starbucks was started. He goes into, I believe it was a French or Italian cafe and wants to mimic that experience and brings that to the United States and now you have Starbucks. And so that's why travel is important. So that was of my recent travels, but that is why I travel.

Kaila Sachse (41:10.645)
that is such a great point. I had a podcast guest, Roger Boduin, who went to a Swiss pizza parlor, had the time of his life and realized that the way that they did pizza was different from here in the States. He brought that concept back. You'll have to listen to his episode to learn more. He brought that concept back to the States, created a brand new concept restaurant and it took off.

Jelani (41:30.146)
Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (41:38.071)
And it's like, that is the beauty of travel. You get to go out into the world, see how other people are doing things, get inspired and apply that to your own life. that is so rich.

Jelani (41:38.105)
Wow.

Jelani (41:47.217)
Yeah, that's it. That's the genius of it all. And what I think about the future of travel is I think that it has a lot more, I look, there's a lot more growth in it, of course, that's great. I still believe it's a luxury. And so I believe that there is going to be an accessibility problem, but I believe there are solutions around that. And

Kaila Sachse (42:10.083)
Yeah.

Jelani (42:15.929)
I preach that travel is just as important as education, as staying healthy, things of that nature. think that travel should be right along that back in the day, they gave us a food pyramid of what you shouldn't eat and what you should eat. This is kind of where I believe travel somewhere on that period and at the very vital portion of that.

Kaila Sachse (42:38.667)
Completely agreed. think it's it's great for us as adult humans on this planet And it's also really important for kids and helping to shape their worldview while their brains are still developing and they're starting to figure out how they feel about the world and people and systems and all the things You mentioned accessibility for accessibility in general to travel

It seems to be a bigger ticket luxury item. What are some tips or suggestions if you have any for families of modest means? mean, how can we get our kids out into the world? What does that look like?

Jelani (43:16.377)
Yeah.

Yeah, I'm a big believer, I'm a big believer. Don't do it on credit. Save your money, save as much as you can and start small. So travel doesn't mean you always have to go to, you I'm not saying for you to go to the Vatican tomorrow. You can start with national parks, know, national parks around here are free. If you go to take a nice little flight to DC, the museums are free. These are things that you can do that are within relative.

Kaila Sachse (43:25.361)
okay. Yeah.

Kaila Sachse (43:34.679)
Hahaha

Jelani (43:49.091)
balanced budgets. Look, you go to Yellowstone, it's one of the most majestic parks to be in. mean, the vast landscape, but also just the environment with all the varying animals and interactions. And also, like, you can do a tour with a bunch of, again, people you don't know, and you're all hiking somewhere, God knows where, but you're with different people of different ages and sorts, and your child can be

Kaila Sachse (44:13.047)
You

Jelani (44:17.411)
Hanging out with some other kid who's like having a whole different experience from somewhere else. And there's an interaction that didn't have to cost you a flight or even some luxury hotel, right? Start with there. And then if you're on the, I will say this in Europe, it's beautiful. have the train system can get you to many different countries relatively easy and inexpensively. If you're on the Americas, go south.

going south is a little bit more inexpensive than going east, right? So that's kind of what I would say. But in terms of what's happening on a larger scale, which is why kind of we started this initiative at Wavechi, it's called the See It To Believe It Foundation. And so they always say, you you have to believe it until you see it. Sometimes I think in certain cases, you need to see it and then you'll understand it or believe it in that.

Kaila Sachse (44:51.361)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Kaila Sachse (45:15.051)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jelani (45:16.633)
And so what we do is we have an initiative to gift plane tickets to any applicants based off a certain process of procedures. And that can be a game changing experience for anybody who wants to sort of, you know, be able to travel and travel kind of in a larger sense, right? Or even just in a meaningful sense, it doesn't have to be, you know, something so crazy like that. So that's kind of what we're doing here. I think if more foundations come out with

some initiatives like that, some ways like that, more grants are applied for it. That is something that can kind of make travel little more accessible. And yeah, that's kind of a few of my thoughts on it. But, and I know as time goes, I'll have more on and maybe more ideas as to, maybe even there's hearing, learning from others, maybe how can we make travel a bit more accessible because it is an economic thing where, know, planes are costing more.

Real estate properties are costing more, therefore the hotels are gonna be costing more. Things are sort of kind of compounding, but there's never, in life, there's never, a door's never closed. There's always some way out. There's always a way to figure a solution out. So there's something that would be developed.

Kaila Sachse (46:33.846)
That's so good. That's so good. I have somebody in my life who is a single mom of five children. Her oldest is in his twenties, so he's not, you know, thankfully there's a little less work there as a mom, but the work never ends. Let's spoiler alert.

Jelani (46:49.72)
Yeah.

Jelani (46:55.321)
That's true, that's true. My mom knows that. She's like, I'm also like...

Kaila Sachse (46:58.394)
Right, right. But her four youngest are at home. They are completely relying on her. And what she's been able to do is similar to your foundation. She'll go out into the world and see where those opportunities are to gift to her children experiences to get out. So recently she got Lego land tickets for everybody for free. And she was able to find that just through research. Yeah, right. So she's...

Jelani (47:23.501)
Nice.

Kaila Sachse (47:26.997)
doing that through research and she's getting out into the world and putting her feelers out and finding those opportunities because travel doesn't always have to be paid. There are those foundations like yours out there who are helping families to access it. Another idea is a credit card points system to take advantage of that, but just be wary of how you're using your credit card. Personally, my husband and I use it as a debit

Jelani (47:52.343)
Yeah, that's the thing.

Kaila Sachse (47:56.969)
We only spend what cash we have in our account and we'll pay off the credit card as soon as possible, but we're accruing those points, those travel points, and that's been able to pay for some of our plane tickets. So that's a way to help make it more accessible too.

Jelani (47:57.89)
Okay.

Jelani (48:01.923)
Beautiful. Yeah.

Jelani (48:10.689)
There we go.

Jelani (48:14.829)
Yeah, I completely agree with, by the way, to the mom you mentioned. How'd you learn how to that? How did she figure that one out?

Kaila Sachse (48:24.401)
she is one of the smartest people I know. She's just like, she's constantly tapping into her network. That's a big one, right? Yeah, nourish your network. Pay attention to who's doing what and don't be afraid to ask. She is so inspiring in that she will ask people for help if she needs it. So I don't know. There's so much. So many good things.

Jelani (48:31.801)
Yeah, that's a big one.

Jelani (48:39.585)
Yes, exactly.

Jelani (48:46.509)
Yeah, I love that. And yeah, definitely use the points if you can. But yeah, I agree with your method. As long as you treat your credit card like it's a debit card, you'll be fine. That's most important one, yeah.

Kaila Sachse (48:55.433)
Yeah, yes, that's a big one. That's important. Yeah. Well, Jelani, it has been such a pleasure chatting with you. I hope to have you on the show again in the future. But in the meantime, be well, enjoy all of the things that travel has to offer. And also, where can people find you? Where can they find Weipichi? Where can they find your foundation?

Jelani (49:18.369)
Yeah, so it's all on our website. So wapchi.com, W-A-P-E-C-H-I.com. You'll find everything there. You'll find all my links. You'll find all of our partners' links and also even the foundation, see it to believe it is on there as well. So simple as that. Thank you, Kayla. I enjoyed it.

Kaila Sachse (49:33.694)
Beautiful. Thank you so much.