Pay Me in Plane Tickets: Designing Business & Balance

The mic has been flipped! On this episode of Pay Me in Plane Tickets, Jelani Millard and Kaila discuss the intricate balance between work and family life, the challenges faced during childhood, and the importance of travel in personal growth

From a challenging childhood in the Mojave Desert to becoming the founder of Yumari Digital, Kaila Sachse also discusses the importance of work-life balance and the value of flexibility in the workplace. She reflects on her early career experiences, the serendipitous moments that led to her first major client, and the growth of her digital agency. 

Jelani & Kaila also touch on the evolving work culture post-pandemic, the challenges of balancing parenthood with entrepreneurship, and future aspirations to create a supportive work environment for others, while sharing personal travel preferences and experiences. Their conversation centers on how relationships evolve through shared experiences, particularly travel, and how motivation in parenting and business can coexist.

More About Pay Me in Plane Tickets podcast
Pay Me in Plane Tickets is a podcast discussing all things travel with individuals who love to explore all parts of the world, experience all cultures and people, and would rather be paid in plane tickets.

Erected in 2022, this media venture continues as it aims to honor the adventurer who chose the path less traveled. Travelers from all walks of life share their stories of exploration, discovery, and self-transformation. Each episode is a unique and inspiring journey, as we delve into the lives of our guests and learn about the places they've been, the people they've met, and the lessons they've learned along the way. 

Departing from Cape Town in 2022, Jelanie Millard was, and still is, amazed at how individuals from various backgrounds are traversing this vast globe ever so frequently. Such to the point that they are seemingly being paid in plane tickets (pun intended). 'So how are they doing it?' - was the essential thesis of this venture. Thus, the podcast was born in which we explore a plethora of individuals who shed a light onto the actions as to how their travels are being achieved. From the corporate heights of a hospitality chief executive to the most followed travel influencer, what was - - and continues being discovered - is that it is not all blue water and clear skies but rather hustle and perseverance. Executed with a love for what they do and why they do what they do. This platform honors them. It's easier to criticize than to create. Jelani chooses to create.

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Listen to Jelani's episode of Bringing Up Business

Transcript

Bringing Up Business (00:01)
Hello friends, I am so excited for today's very special audio only episode. It's actually a mic flip where someone else is interviewing me. That someone else is the wonderful Jelani Millard, who you might recognize from a previous episode where we discuss the value of travel. Today, we are chatting on his podcast called, Pay Me in Plane Tickets,

and we share an awesome conversation about, of course, travel and my favorite topics, parenting and business. I dive into what it's been like to travel with the little one because if you don't already know, I have been traveling with him since he was five months old.

We've traveled by plane, boat, train, bus, whatever you can think of. My baby and I have traveled together alongside with my husband. We've visited four countries, not including the layovers because those don't count. But yeah, that's going to be discussed in today's episode. I have a few travel, business, and parenting tips to share. I hope you enjoy and let's get into it.

Speaker 1 (01:13)
The European way of living is so brilliant. You know, I heard this story, somebody's sitting down at a cafe somewhere in Italy and he's he's tapping his feet, right? He's impatient, he's American, he's waiting for his check. And finally he's able to get the server over and he goes, hey, can I have my check? I gotta go. And the server goes, where do you gotta go? Where do have to be? in America, we're in such a rush. For what? For what? Where are we rushing to?

We're just rushing to our grave if we continue to live this hustle hustle culture. You know, there's no need to rush. Life is short. We gotta enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (01:50)
Welcome to the Pay Me and Plan Tickets podcast. I Kaila Sachse here, who is the founder of Yumari Digital, which is an all-in-one digital servicing platform with an effective and winning strategies. She really sort of services the small and startup businesses, getting them off the ground in a multitude of ways with their 15 years of experience and beyond. I must say she is a delight to have around.

She's a wealth of information. also, along with her family, does travel and does talk about sort of the importance of getting an educational experience and a business mindset around some of these trips and even they probably can get some insights from them as well. ⁓ But she is also the host of the Bringing Up Business podcast, which I had the joy and pleasure to be on as well. So I'd like to welcome Kaila to the Pay Me In Plain to get podcast. How are you feeling today?

Speaker 1 (02:43)
I'm feeling great. Thanks so much for having me here today. It's so good to see your face again. mean, we just last time we chatted, it was so lovely. So it's it's nice to get to catch up.

Speaker 2 (02:52)
It was a great conversation. I'm not gonna lie. I definitely want everybody to check out that episode because it was, asked, Kaila asked great questions. I felt like it was a very insightful and thoughtful production. ⁓ yeah, I take a listen to it even from time to time myself.

Speaker 1 (03:09)
I appreciate that. You your episode is one of the best performing. And on the note with the questions, it is there's so much pressure to try to come up with like a follow up question, like keep the conversation going. But you know, we have such a natural flow that it was, you know, it was fun.

Speaker 2 (03:26)
Yeah, look cuz getting paid and playing tickets and bringing up business they just they meshed, you know

Speaker 1 (03:33)
Yup. Yup.

Speaker 2 (03:35)
Kaila, ⁓ to dive right in a little bit, kind of give us a little bit about kind of your early days in your career, in your lifestyle, kind of where do you hail from?

Speaker 1 (03:45)
man. Okay. So, know, early, early days I hail from a place that didn't get much hail or even rain for that matter. ⁓ I come from the Mojave desert. So if you know the Mojave, we've got these funny little shrub tree things called Joshua trees. They're very interesting. ⁓ but yeah, that's where, that's where I grew up about 70 miles north of, of Los Angeles. And you know, I didn't have the easiest childhood. So I planned.

on moving out as soon as possible, which I did at 19 years old. was out the door, had a juicy savings that I worked my butt off for. yeah, yeah, that was, that's how I got started. I went to school. I went to graphic design school out in LA. And, you know, originally I was commuting back and forth at 70 miles, like what, three or four times a week.

depending on my class schedule and all that. And if anybody has been to an art school, your classes aren't just like an hour long, they're four hour long.

Speaker 2 (04:53)
⁓ wow, I didn't even know that.

Speaker 1 (04:55)
Yeah,

yeah, it's basically like, you know, you're basically workshopping, right? Like your professor will teach you the things to do for that session. And then your remaining, you know, three hours is all about just doing the work and putting your head down pencil to paper, graphite to paper, whatever. And practicing those basics. Yeah. So I would have like two to three class sessions in a day. So if you do the math, that's an eight to 12 hour day.

Right, so I commute out.

Speaker 2 (05:26)
Not including the drive.

Speaker 1 (05:28)
Exactly, not including the drive. So it's an hour and a half there, put in my eight to 12 hours of class time, plus lunch and all that extra time, and then an hour and a half back. And I was only able to sustain that for about a year before I actually started falling asleep at the wheel. It got dangerous. So I was like, okay, I gotta move to LA, I gotta be closer to school in order to survive this.

And, you know, thankfully someone gave me the invitation to move into a house. It had 12 bedrooms, which meant there were 12 roommates at, yeah, it was, was bananas. It basically like a frat house.

Speaker 2 (06:09)
He's a frat.

Speaker 1 (06:12)
You know, at any one point in time, I felt like there were like 30 people at the house with like friends and girlfriends and cousins, you know? It was so much fun. was a great experience. ⁓ But yeah, I was able to move to LA for like 500 bucks a month. was, you can't beat that.

Speaker 2 (06:28)
Yeah, no, that's a good deal. Yeah. That's not happening nowadays, but yeah. That's a steal of the century.

Speaker 1 (06:37)
my gosh, it was amazing. you know, granted I was sacrificing having to share a kitchen and I think there were like two, two or three bathrooms that we all shared.

Speaker 2 (06:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the college year come ups, you know?

Speaker 1 (06:53)
Exactly, exactly. you know, but that's that was my living situation. That's how I was able to round out school, finish it up right after school. They hosted a really cool. I don't know how to describe this. It's like a get together for all of the graduating students. And it was a job fair. That's the best way to put it. It was a job fair. OK, so all the graduating students get together, they set up their tables. I had my own little table with all my, you know, my portfolio stuff.

And two people had walked by my booth and gave me job offers that day. So I was like, okay. I went in for interviews for both of them. Here's where I probably made the wrong decision, but it worked out anyway.

Speaker 2 (07:38)
I'm ready.

Speaker 1 (07:40)
One of them gave me an offer to be a website designer. OK. The other one gave me an offer to to go into fashion and design tracksuits and really like boring apparel. I don't know why I chose that one. I chose the boring route. ⁓

Speaker 2 (07:59)
Got a bit more interesting.

Speaker 1 (08:04)
You know what? We got to keep it fresh. Got to keep it fun. But you know what? I I'm glad I chose that. That job only lasted for about 10 months before I got laid off. It was like this whole thing. But. I learned a lot through that. I ended up working an additional nine to five after that. I learned way more in that role. I ended up going from I started as a junior graphic designer.

and I worked my way up to shipping million dollar shipments. I mean, that was like ⁓ the scale of my skillset, my capacity. I was able to just learn so much new stuff and I had the bandwidth for it, which was surprising and exciting. learned all this stuff, had a great time. Now we enter my first international travel. It was at that? Yeah, it was at that job.

that I, it was in the middle of that job that I was planning on going on an international trip with my then boyfriend, now husband, and his family. They are from the Philippines, so we were planning on going back to the Philippines to visit his mom's province, as well as a couple other islands. And, you know, this is a big trip, so we're planning way in advance. It's like six months in advance, right?

So, you know, we.

Speaker 2 (09:35)
that

time to actually like get it all together and set up.

Speaker 1 (09:38)
Yeah, that and plus like plane tickets get more expensive the closer you get to a trip, right? So we're also taking advantage of that, right? So I tell my boss, I'm like, I told my boss, I didn't ask, told, I said, hey, I'm going on this trip in six months, right? Just a heads up, I'm gonna be away for a couple of weeks. And by that point, I'd already been at the company for a few years.

Speaker 2 (09:45)
You

Speaker 1 (10:06)
I accrued that time off. To me, it felt like a no-brainer. Now, my boss's response was an immediate no.

Speaker 2 (10:16)
Get outta here.

Speaker 1 (10:17)
I It was a ⁓ very quick no. You cannot go on that trip because that is during our busy season.

Speaker 2 (10:26)
mmm

Speaker 1 (10:28)
I said, okay, heard, got that. ⁓ Are you sure? It was like, yep, I'm sure you cannot go on that trip. I said, okay. I went home from work that day. I bought my plane tickets. I planned out my exit. I was like, okay, well.

What do I have to use up? I got to use up my vacation time. So I took that during Christmas instead. I went on an awesome snowboarding trip in Utah. Like I just had a grand old time with that vacation. I knew that my sick pay had to be paid out, just legally it had to be paid out. So I was like, okay, I don't have to worry about using that. And then ⁓ six months later, I went to the Philippines and came home without a job.

Speaker 2 (11:18)
the best serves aren't they?

Speaker 1 (11:19)
It was amazing. you unbeknownst to me, prior to going on that trip, I had gone to this like dream board party, right? You go, you get together. We're all scrapbooking, got all these stacks of magazines and we were cutting out all these these visions of what we want our future to look like. at that party, I had met this brilliant couple who is running a warehouse. It was a fashion warehouse and they're working with with brands all over the all over the world.

And we started, we got a little nerdy. You know, I had my previous job, like I mentioned, I was shipping multimillion dollar shipments. So I understood the nitty gritty of what it takes to do that. It's not like you just slap a FedEx label onto a box and ship it out to a vendor. You these, these big box retailers, have very strict requirements and I was used to doing that. And there was also a technical component to that as well. So I understood that software and all that.

So I'm talking with this couple who's running the warehouse and we start nerding out about the technicalities of shipping and yada, yada, yada. The night goes on, we have a good time. Fast forward, I go on my trip, I come home and at that point, I don't think there was an ability to do an eSIM on my phone, right? So I was just completely offline. I didn't go international or anything. I just like...

I was just offline for the whole trip, right? didn't care about making calls and sending texts. Who was I gonna text? Who cares? You know? And so I come back home, I swap out my SIM card, and sure enough, there's a voicemail from the husband of that couple. And he's like, hey, Kaila, we've been thinking about the conversation we had with you at the dream board party a few months ago, and...

Speaker 2 (12:56)
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:17)
We want to talk to you. We want to explore this. Explore what you know and see if maybe you could help us with the warehouse. And I'm listening to this voicemail in the Uber ride coming home from LAX. I'm exhausted, by the way. That's a very long flight.

Speaker 2 (13:38)
No, no, no, that's a minute. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:43)
And I'm like, ⁓ man, this is a pretty cool opportunity. I'm exhausted, but let me call him back anyway. And let's like, let's, let's move this thing along. I don't have a job, so I might as well explore it.

Speaker 2 (13:56)
Great. What do have to lose to kind of test it out?

Speaker 1 (14:00)
Exactly. Exactly. So I explore it. I call him back. go on. ⁓ I guess you'd call it an interview is more like a just a coffee get together, chit chat conversation. And a month later I have my first major client. And that was just like the beginning of my freelance career. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:18)
Wow.

Spontaneous, but yet purposed in a way.

Speaker 1 (14:23)
Exactly. Lots of, lots of serendipity, but also like, I think that's the power of leaning into integrity, right? Like if something feels good leaning into that, if something doesn't feel good, just step away from it. You don't need it.

Speaker 2 (14:39)
Yeah, you know, your story reminds me of when I was in university, ⁓ kind of a funny story, a little tidbit. ⁓ I remember a guidance counselor, maybe a counselor, career counselor, whatever it was. He said, what I really hope for you is that you fired or laid off your first job ⁓ first, because it teaches you.

to not be so reliant or dependent upon that particular job. And you're always gonna be exploring other things. And lo and behold, just like you, my first job, I was there for about a year, got laid off. And it was one of the best things that ever happened to me because I was falling into that, I'm gonna be here for 15 years and this is where it's gonna be. And I'm caught up in the dynamic of the company or whatever it was. And it's like, no, that's not how it works.

That's how none of this works. it allows you in front of the similarity from your story, or what I'm extracting from your story is that ⁓ you kind of grew, ⁓ you explored yourself more, you kind of took another chance, you kind of went out there and still was fishing for opportunities, even though it may not seem like it, you were just having a conversation at this event and look at what it turned out to be, right? So.

Yeah, so I do tell some young bucks, say, yeah, I hope you get fired from your first job because now you know, like, and I think the younger generation knows this now, they're definitely not as ⁓ loyal to a company as I think our previous generations were, you know, they were there for 50 years and, know, now granted the pensions are nice, but we'll take that risk in chance.

Speaker 1 (16:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I've definitely noticed that with the younger generation. I lend them so much credit because they know that there is always more, right? And on the other hand, like maybe that could be a little rough, right? That the grass is always greener, that sort of mentality, right? But on the flip side, when you know that there could be better, you are raising the standard of

those around you, right? Of your employer, especially like you're looking at your employer with a finer eye and you're saying, hey, can I be treated better in this situation? And so I've seen like the quality of workplaces improve because of that.

Speaker 2 (17:16)
So that's a really good attitude.

Speaker 1 (17:18)
Yeah,

exactly. Exactly. We especially saw that during COVID. I mean, all all employers were going remote and and better, better taking care of their employees. I've noticed how that has even improved the lives of parents. You know, I feel like parents have always had like the brunt had had had to take the brunt of strict workplaces. You know, they're not as flexible. They can't go pick up their kids from school or

or whatever it is, but now there's a lot more flexibility.

Speaker 2 (17:50)
That's a good point because I have it on actually one of the things I want to discuss with you about is because of, again, the pandemic hits and remote work and hybrid work becomes the major focus for not only individuals but families. ⁓ But you're kind of seeing a clawback on it. At least, so I'm in New York and you're in Cali. ⁓ We're seeing a major clawback on that. One of the major drivers is not a justifiable driver, but the driver is

They're spending so much money on those buildings, they gotta find some way to justify that. Like we need people to back these offices. But what are your thoughts on sort of the major firms, the major players who are saying, no, we want you guys in the office five days a week as a, especially, and they're saying it to work families, know, like, hey, despite how far you guys are, or despite the family dynamic, ⁓ being in an office space,

for eight hours is necessary.

Speaker 1 (18:55)
I'm shaking my head and like sucking on my teeth because it's just like, you know what? They can do it. They can try it. They can try it. And the data is going to show for itself, right? In employee retention and even in hiring, we'll see how that turns out. But I'll tell you what, the flexibility is what people value nowadays. Enjoy.

Speaker 2 (19:02)
Yeah.

And also the challenge is like to what you represent ⁓ because now you're able to control your time, you control your destiny. You don't necessarily, you make the decision that's best suits yourself and your family. And I think ⁓ you being a leader in that sort of this new phase, it's going to act as a challenge to what these firms are doing, right?

Speaker 1 (19:46)
Mm-hmm, yep. I had a really important conversation with Paul Stonick on my pod about how to nourish a workplace culture that is conducive for that employee retention and hiring, and just to be competitive as an employer. And part of that retention strategy is taking care of your employees, meeting them where they are at.

instead of demanding them to come to you in this very stark hospital, clean, sterile way, you know? Instead of saying, hey, look, I've got a team of humans and humans have needs, so let's take care of our humans. So that's the new way of taking care of our teams. And again, like the bigger firms,

Yes, they have a lot more market share and they have that, you know, they have that ability to demand things from their employees. But I hope that they're giving out Benny's in exchange.

Speaker 2 (20:55)
You know. ⁓

Speaker 1 (20:57)
You gotta keep the offer sexy somehow.

Speaker 2 (21:01)
Look, somebody's gotta pay for the 70 mile drives, you know?

Speaker 1 (21:05)
You filming? Like...

Speaker 2 (21:07)
Somebody's got to deal with it. But the illusion of power can be erased with a single thought. you representing that kind of the manifestation of, you can take back your time, kind of control your destiny, do what's best for yourself and your family. That is the biggest threat to it. And I really hope it proceeds because ⁓ there honestly does not need to be a need to be in the office five days a week.

No!

Speaker 1 (21:38)
⁓

No, why are we doing this to ourselves? It's silly. after exploring places, like I was just, I just came back from Italy and Croatia, right? The European way of living is so brilliant.

Speaker 2 (21:54)
Amazing.

Speaker 1 (21:55)
You know, I heard this story of somebody sitting down at a cafe somewhere in Italy and he's he's tapping his feet, right? He's impatient, he's American, he's waiting for his check. And finally he's able to get the server over and he goes, hey, can I have my check? I gotta go. And the server goes, where do you gotta go? Where do have to be? Like in America, we're in such a rush. For what?

For what? Where are we rushing to? We're just rushing to our grave if we continue to live this hustle hustle culture. Now this isn't to discount work ethic, right? And doing what it takes to best fulfill our work and what's required of it. But you know, there's no need to rush. Life is short. We gotta enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (22:47)
That's very true. That was beautifully said. Beautifully put.

Speaker 1 (22:51)
Thank you. I put a lot of brain power in that.

Speaker 2 (22:53)
You

When starting Yumari Digital, did it start in that natural approach with the first major client or did you kind of, okay, you're not, have, so was it like, okay, I was thinking maybe it was, that was the spark. And then you said, okay, I can actually turn this into sort of a lifestyle for myself.

Speaker 1 (23:16)
Yes, yes, that was definitely the catalyst because before I had locked in the deal with that first client, I was actually toying with maybe I can help sell my boyfriend's brand. He has this really cool apparel brand. And I was like, there's actually a funny story with that. my brother-in-law, my brother-in-law is a brilliant salesperson. He's actually in real estate now, which is intelligent, right?

Speaker 2 (23:43)
That's a nice place to be.

Speaker 1 (23:44)
That's a great place to be if you're good at sales, man. He's crushing it. But he and I got together and we're like, okay, let's, let's sell Adrian's brand. Adrian's my husband. Let's sell Adrian's brand and let's make a list of all these different retailers in our area and let's, let's hit them up. And so we go out, we're, we're, trying to figure out how to like best sell this thing. We call, we call one, one retailer and we're like, Hey,

I forgot like our approach, was something like, hey, can we talk to your manager? We had an issue with XYZ and we want to like, it was a really manipulative, silly way to do something. mean, God, I've learned so much since then. She's Louise. And thankfully that lady over the phone was like, what are you really trying to do? What are you getting at? Because I can tell you're spinning my gears here.

Speaker 2 (24:38)
This is part of your sales pitch, your sales book 101 when you release it.

Speaker 1 (24:42)
Yeah, what not to do. Not to sell something. Oh my God. And yeah, I just remember in that moment, Arv and I look at each other like, okay, it's time to hang up the phone and hang up our sales career here with this whole thing. We're not going to make it.

So yeah, they, my God. So thank goodness I was able to like go pivot in a different direction and work with a client in a capacity that actually makes sense for me, which was working in the warehousing space and doing graphics for them and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (25:16)
Okay, and what has it been like building it? It's now it's much more mature than when you first started. So what is that growth path? Kind of explain that to us. Like, what does that look like for you?

Speaker 1 (25:27)
it's been amazing. So, you when I started off again, I was a freelancer, I was solo. I was working in the warehouse, gosh, a few days a week. And they'd asked me several times, hey, can you please come in full time? And I was like, you know what? I really want to, I think I learned from being laid off, I really want to diversify my income and work with multiple clients instead of just one employer. And I'm, that,

decision forever changed my life for the positive. I was able to maintain the warehouse work for a few days. And then I was able to help serve other clients at the same time, right? So now I have a full five, sometimes even six days schedule because in the early days you work longer hours and work more days. And man, that...

that totally blossomed. So I had the warehouse client, I had another client who was referred to me from a colleague who I'd previously worked with. And that other client, she, ⁓ my gosh, she sent out my name to like 10 other clients. It just multiplied. And over the span of six, seven, seven years, I think, I was floating almost entirely off of referrals.

Speaker 2 (26:53)
Beautiful.

Speaker 1 (26:54)
That's just, and that was, I think part of that was due to my desire to only deliver results that I was proud of. I didn't want to turn in anything that was 50%. It had to be 110%. You know, A, for my own soul to feel good about it, but also B, like these people are trusting me with their dollars. I owe it to them to give them.

what they deserve and more, right? Over-deliver. And so, yeah, again, like that all multiplied over the span of seven years. I was able to serve, I think at that point, know, dozens, dozens of clients just from word of mouth. And I then realized, so I took on a business mentor from Score. Score is a really cool national program who serves, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you heard of them?

Speaker 2 (27:52)
I think so. I believe so. I am bad with names, but I think I do.

Speaker 1 (27:56)
Yeah, me too.

really struggle. ⁓

Speaker 2 (28:00)
I'm better with pictures, graphic design. If you show me, I'll see if can recognize it.

Speaker 1 (28:05)
Same, But yeah, so I was able to work with a free business mentor through Score and she completely shifted the way that I was looking at business in a way that I'd never thought of before. So she was like, hey, you're relying on referrals. It's impressive, but it's also very scary. It's not sustainable, right?

Speaker 2 (28:32)
True.

Speaker 1 (28:33)
You're essentially relying on other people to bring you your income and that's not safe. So it's time to get yourself out there. And it's funny because I market for other businesses, but marketing myself is so scary. It's a very vulnerable act of putting yourself out there into the world, you know, because you can face rejection, right? It's scary. But I had to do it. So that was one thing that she taught me.

She also helped me niche down. So if you remember from my story, I worked in a warehouse. I was doing like nitty gritty technical stuff as well as graphic design. And when I zoomed out and looked at all of the different services that I was offering, I realized that there were a lot of services that I was offering that I wasn't very excited about or passionate about. I was just doing them because I was good at them. Not necessarily because I love to do them, right?

Speaker 2 (29:29)
Got it.

Speaker 1 (29:31)
I pared down what I was offering into only graphics, only marketing services. So by focusing my offering, not only did I feel even better about the work that I was doing, but it was easier to communicate what I could do instead of just being like, come to me, I could do everything. Like, what does that really mean? It's so vague. I could be like, hey, come to me. I can help you with your branding. I can help you with your websites, your email marketing, social media.

yada yada, right? It's very clear and understandable. So those were the two main things that I did. And in transitioning from a freelancer slash solopreneur to an agency owner, I hired some people. ⁓ They're not employees yet, which I'm like working to get to that point. But I was so excited to...

take on a team who I could collaborate with and who could bring me their perspectives. You know, because when you're a solopreneur, you're working in a vacuum.

Speaker 2 (30:38)
true.

Speaker 1 (30:39)
You know, you're not really considering other points of view because you just can't. Like you don't have, you can be as open-minded as possible, but you just can't see other points of view, right?

Speaker 2 (30:50)
Yeah, there's no other voice in the room.

Speaker 1 (30:52)
Exactly, exactly. And so that was a huge value add was bringing in these alternative voices who could help bring different ideas to the table and again, collaborate. those were the three main benefits of going from freelancer to agency owner.

Speaker 2 (31:14)
that you're seeing right now today in your practice.

Speaker 1 (31:18)
Yes, that I'm seeing today. And I made that shift a few years ago. What's crazy is that a month after I rebranded, started the agency, I found out it was pregnant.

Speaker 2 (31:29)
double whammy.

Speaker 1 (31:31)
⁓ my gosh, it was like, it was wild. I felt like I was learning how to be a parent in two different capacities, right? Like the first one is like as a business owner in a different, you know, of a different sort, but also an actual literal parent of a human being child.

Speaker 2 (31:52)
Wow, yeah, you're birthing two great things. ⁓

Speaker 1 (31:55)
It was

crazy. That's amazing. It was wild. The learning curve was nuts, but it was so cool.

Speaker 2 (32:01)
That's amazing. wow. Okay. Because it was funny because I was going to then ask because now that the business and your business foundation is almost basically fully formed, still expanding and going even beyond and family has been balanced well with it, you guys found a good, perfect medium. My next question was really going to be based around, you been able to sort of

Enjoy the fruits of your labor. Have you guys been able to kind of take those trips? I know you just mentioned Italy and everything, but I guess is that recent or like now or now more than before you're able to kind of really enjoy that time together and be able to not just work solely on the business, but also get inspiration in your travels or in you guys's sort of gatherings.

Speaker 1 (32:55)
One thing that I'm really good at is balancing work and play. When I'm working, my door is closed. No outside inputs who aren't supposed to be in my workspace are interrupting my flow. I'm really good at getting into flow. That's how I work and the exact same way when I play. Emails are off. I don't want to be thinking about work while I'm playing.

I'm really good at getting into the flow state for both of those activities. And I've always valued that. I mentioned earlier, I had a really hard childhood. I have a younger brother, my only sibling. ⁓ He's deaf from birth, so he's also mute. And he's also severely autistic. And a lot of that was due to...

him being born extremely premature. was born at 26 weeks gestated, which for anybody who understands like the pregnancy timeline, that is severely underdeveloped. And how he was able to survive that, this kid is a warrior. he, nothing will take this kid down, right? So he was able to survive that, birth, yeah. And so as a young girl, I'm very specific on saying,

girl because you know, women are taught to take care of others and we're taught to be small. I felt like I had to extend that even further having a disabled sibling, right? I had to be even smaller so that my parents could focus more energy on my brother. And I had to be even more independent so that again, my parents didn't have to worry about me as much. And you know, that was hard, but it's,

empowered me. know, through my teen years, I was able to do everything in my power to save up as much money as possible. I raked leaves. I babysat the principal of my high school's kids. I don't know how that happened.

Speaker 2 (35:06)
Sales, you sold something, you sold my sub idea.

Speaker 1 (35:11)
Next thing you know, I'm in my principal's house watching his three kids. was, I don't know how. And so I did oddball tests like that. I tutored little kids in math, know? Did everything I could. I had a ⁓ physical jar that I put all of my cash in from my earnings. And I was able to, again, I was able to move out at 19 with a large chunk of cash, a lot more money.

that a 19 year old should ever see, you know? But I don't know how I was trusted with that. It was kind of crazy. But so I worked really hard as a teenager, but also as a teenager, I now had the freedom of having a vehicle to go drive to LA, go to the beach, go to rock concerts with my friends, go to the Vans Warped Tour. Who remembers the Vans Warped Tour? Is that even still around? It was so fun and dangerous.

Speaker 2 (36:03)
I don't even know, but possibly. I do remember Vans being a big thing.

Speaker 1 (36:08)
⁓ man, was, gosh, was so much fun. just, if I wasn't working my butt off, you know, making sure I got the grades to secure my future and making sure I got the money to secure my future, I was out having a blast with my friends too. You know, it was like, I lived in these two worlds and somehow I was able to keep them separate, you know?

Speaker 2 (36:33)
separate but equal in the same way.

Speaker 1 (36:35)
separate but equal.

Yeah, yeah. So I had a, I still had a really good time as a teenager and I brought that sense of fun with me. you know, I, fast forward, I meet my soon to be husband. I think I was 20 when we met. I wasn't even drinking age yet. Yeah. We were young. We were so young, but we...

Speaker 2 (36:57)
Young.

Speaker 1 (37:02)
You know, we had a lot of fun too. We went on these different trips. I mentioned the Philippines trip. That was our first international trip together, which I recommend by the way, for any young couple or not young, but any couple who is fresh, new, you're like two, three years dating, go on a trip together. That's going to help you best understand the other person because it gives you the chance to like go through trials.

Speaker 2 (37:29)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:30)
see how the other person reacts to things and see you get to watch how they treat people out in the world.

Speaker 2 (37:36)
And also you get to see how they live because you're technically with them for the duration of the trip, is a very big, it's a very big preview, a good preview if you can actually get through it. And so same way you and your husband sort of went through that journey. It the same way me and my lady went through the same journey as well. You know, we traveled a ton. And so, yeah, by the time we went in together, it was easy.

Speaker 1 (38:02)
Yes, yes, highly recommend. Well, it's funny, we kind of did things a little backwards. So we moved in together at one year dating. So I was only 20, 21 when we moved in together. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what? By that point, had been out into the world a lot more than any 20 year old by the time I met my husband. So I was very keen on meeting somebody who cared about the long.

You know, I'd like, I'd been through my relationships. I'm the kind of person where if I know something's not right for me, I just cut it. I don't waste my time. Not honestly, you know? And I even told my husband when we started dating, I was like, look, like I don't do on and off again, relationships. If we break up, we're broken up. We're not getting back together. And I think that instilled an understanding between the two of us that

If we want this thing to work, we're gonna work at it. We're not just gonna give up and rely on getting back together again, eventually. don't, we're not. We get to very clean. And so, you know, we, again, like, so we moved in together at one year dating and then we travel until like three or four years dating for that trip. ⁓ The big, the big trip. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:09)
you kept it clean.

Indonesia too.

Speaker 1 (39:29)
I think we've done some domestic travel maybe before that. don't really remember it was so long ago, but I'm kind of dating myself here.

Speaker 2 (39:36)
⁓ So basically, ⁓ and you went through a lot there because basically you your upbringing was ⁓ challenging, yet you still found a way to balance the upbringing with sort of a solution as you got out into college and was able to explore and really kind of reclaim back some of the fun that you lost in your teen years.

Well, then you also balance that experience with now having a business, having a family and really understanding the importance of turning it on when you need to work and turning it off for the family to kind of give and devote that undivided attention to both without feeling burnt out on any side of it. So with all of that, how do you

Speaker 1 (40:31)
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (40:35)
How do you continue to motivate yourself in your business and in your family? ⁓ Like what's a motivating element that you can utilize or share to kind of still keep it all together and still grow at the same time, know, keep it all intact and grow together.

Speaker 1 (40:55)
Yeah, well, so here's the thing. My kid is two and a half, which makes me still a relatively new parent, right? I've only been a mom for two and a half years. What? I know, right? Like, I really thought my badge would arrive in the mail by now, but apparently not. So I guess I have to wait a little bit. man, and I'll also like, I'll also share, I'm a bit of a maybe workaholic.

Speaker 2 (41:08)
so you're not a veteran.

the cup scene.

Speaker 1 (41:25)
I really, I don't know, I hate that word because it doesn't, it's not as accurate as I want it to be. I love the work that I do, period. I get into it, it's super easy. Again, I've mentioned flow state a few times. I can get into flow state super simply. Like it's just, it's a fit for me. And so I've only had two and a half years of practicing what it's like to divide that for a little human being.

Right? And say like, okay, the work stays in my office and now I'm in family mode. This whole concept of family mode or mom mode is still fresh and new to me. Now, fun is different than work to me, but the mom mode is like this new arena that I'm still trying to figure out. I will say that the motivating factor for me to practice not checking my emails while I'm watching my kid and

setting that work aside is the understanding that if he continues, that if he watches me be on my phone, we're going to get to a point where he's learning how to be an adult from me. So he's going to think that a phone is necessary for him to be a full adult.

Speaker 2 (42:49)
That's an interesting element you brought up that I didn't think of from that perspective. They're kind of like monkey see monkey do.

Speaker 1 (42:56)
He does this cute little thing where he puts on my slippers and he walks around the house. in doing that, he is pretending to be me. He's pretending to be an older version of himself. So him watching me on my phone, he's going to think I need this phone in order to be complete. And I don't want that for him. To be honest, the phone sucks. I hate the phone. I want to throw it away.

Speaker 2 (43:22)
No.

Speaker 1 (43:25)
Same with social media. I wish I could just completely ditch it, but you know, I do enjoy the social aspect of it, but I hate the doom scrolling. It's annoying. It's a waste of time. There's so much life out there to be lived and being stuck behind a screen is not, is not it.

Speaker 2 (43:40)
Very true, very true. Yeah. If I could give up my phone, I'd be fine. I would just keep my laptop. Laptop is a need, but the phone can go.

Speaker 1 (43:48)
Yes.

Yeah, yep, yep. Yeah, I'm tempted to like eliminate my social media offering because I don't wanna be on my phone so much. But so yeah, so that said, like I don't want my kid to need a phone. And so that's my motivation to stay off of my phone near him and give him my undivided attention. I also want him to know that he is valuable.

as he is, he doesn't need to do anything extra to be valuable. He is completely 100 % deserving from birth naturally as he is. So I don't want him to have to try to get my attention and, you know, feel like he has to do anything extra, like I said. So I think about that too. Now, as a parent, is...

completely unfair to say that I have to devote 100 % of my focus and time when I'm with him for the five hours that I watch him every day. That would be bananas, nothing would get done. Our sink full of dishes would be even fuller than it is now. know, like things still have to get done and he still have to learn that the world keeps spinning. He is not the center of the whole universe. You know, and

And look, so my husband's Filipino, I'm white. Somehow our kid turned out white. So he's a white male. I cannot let this white male go out into the world thinking that the world revolves around him. We can't do that. I gotta teach this kid to be humble and understand he's part of a bigger ecosystem. I'm still figuring out how to balance those two.

Speaker 2 (45:39)
Thank

Speaker 1 (45:46)
Right. Giving him all of the love that he deserves and also teaching him the ways of the world. It's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 2 (45:54)
That's very noble in the way that you think ⁓ because travel could be that answer. When you get outside of the bubble in the neighborhood you guys live, ⁓ immediately into a land that you have, there's nobody else that you know, there's no society that you can recognize. You immediately know the world keeps moving. It does not resolve.

revolved just around you now he's he's two years old he's not gonna recognize this now but but still as he when he when he when he grows into a more conscious state that'd be something where okay you can plot you guys self right back in indonesia immediately you will know this world is much bigger than than california

Speaker 1 (46:39)
Yep, that's exactly why we travel with him. His first travel was to ⁓ a dear friend's wedding in Maui. And so that was a little tiny like tester trip, right? For Callie, that's like a... I think it's like five or six, if I remember correctly. Maybe it was eight, but I'm pretending it's five to make it feel better. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (47:02)
Gotta psych yourself.

Speaker 1 (47:03)
I gotta make it feel more palatable, you traveling with the baby. know, when that opportunity came up to go to our dear friend's wedding, was like a, it was a no brainer. It's like, yeah, of course we will be there, A, because you're our dear friend, but also this is a chance for us to travel with our kid and show him the world, show him that it's bigger than just this little bubble he grows up in.

Speaker 2 (47:09)
Cheers.

Speaker 1 (47:31)
and gets to see every day, the four walls that he lives in.

Speaker 2 (47:34)
Yeah, oh, that's I like that and look Maui is a good start. It is a good start.

Speaker 1 (47:40)
It is. ⁓ man, what a cool place. we talk like just for a second, side note, they are so eco-friendly. is incredibly inspiring.

Speaker 2 (47:48)
It's inspiring and they have to be. mean, a lot of their environment is reliant upon how they treat their ecosystem, how they treat the land that they are inhabiting. There's no other way around

Speaker 1 (48:01)
What a funny thought to be connected to our planet and realize that it nourishes us and we have to take care of it.

Speaker 2 (48:07)
⁓ It's a funny thought and it's still at the same time a harsh reality for some.

Speaker 1 (48:12)
Mm-hmm. Anyway. ⁓

Speaker 2 (48:17)
Yeah, that's a bar for another another for some other podcast What is next for you and and you Mara and how do you plan to grow it? What's the what do you see yourself? What do you see yourself and also the your firm in the next maybe six twelve twenty four months? What's kind of the goal?

Speaker 1 (48:40)
Gosh, I love that. I am doubling down on marketing efforts right now. And the reason for that is because I want to grow to the point where I can just hire people as employees, give them all that a human being needs to live without having to like force them to piece it together. I mean, I'm not forcing them, they're choosing.

choosing their life too. And maybe they're choosing in the way that I am, hopefully, like where they want more flexibility and all that. But I want to be able to offer that capability where it's like, Hey, if you want to come on as an employee, have benefits, I'm going to help you out with the 401k. I want to help people save their money and think of the future in that way too. That's like my dream for the company.

And so, yeah, just right now I'm like nose to the grind, just like doing, the marketing efforts, getting out there. My word of the year is big. And so I'm just thinking big and I'm saying yes to things that scare me and getting vulnerable and just being big.

Speaker 2 (49:58)
Yeah

The word of the year is big for you guys. The word?

Speaker 1 (50:03)
The

year is big.

Speaker 2 (50:06)
Okay, okay. I'm backing. We're backing over here. We're backing.

Speaker 1 (50:11)
Thank you, thank you. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (50:14)
All right, Kaila, I know you have a busy day ahead of you because you're hours behind ⁓ us over here on the East Coast. Yeah. But we like to end off with some pay me in plane tickets questions to kind of see where you fall on the spectrum. So it's a little pop quiz. So let's see where you go. You ready? All right. So if you were, if you and Yamara were to be paid in plane tickets, which airline are you choosing?

Speaker 1 (50:31)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I recently flew for the first time with Condor. I have never been so impressed by the design aesthetic of an airplane.

Speaker 2 (50:52)
They are new.

Speaker 1 (50:54)
They're beautiful. interior of this. Oh my gosh. Thank goodness they came around because man, I, so I'm, you know, I'm a nerdy graphic designer. I see the world in a very specific visual way. The interior of the place and that we were on was like all black and the, the screen monitors were so nicely designed. Like the layout was beautiful. The font choices were beautiful. So yeah, Condor.

purely because of their design. I don't even remember if they serve food or anything. ⁓

Speaker 2 (51:24)
You

were that captivated.

Speaker 1 (51:26)
I was enamored.

Speaker 2 (51:28)
Hahaha!

Oh man, okay, all right, so condor for the victory. Okay, when you do travel, do you normally do hotel or Airbnb?

Speaker 1 (51:39)
Ooh, it depends on where we're going. It depends on where we're going. So if it's a short stay, I would do hotel and I would choose a hotel with free breakfast. So it's one less thing I have to think about. But if it's a longer stay, I have maybe a bigger group of people who I'm traveling with. Airbnb is really fun. It keeps everybody within the same space. We get to cook together. We get to go hang out on the back porch together and just like feel like a family.

So it really just depends on what the trip is about.

Speaker 2 (52:11)
Okay, which is a common response. It depends on the type of trip and also where you're going. Yeah. Okay, when you do travel, you have a preferred credit card or debit card you're using for points or miles or you just cash like me.

Speaker 1 (52:25)
Yeah, this is a tricky one, right? Because when we travel, you can write that off for business, but my business credit cards are trash. So I like to use my personal card and write an expense report afterwards. I come home with like a mound of receipts. It's really annoying, but you know, it's a workaround. the card that we use is the Capital One Venture Card. It has no fees abroad. It has no annual fee.

There are like zero lounge perks, but ⁓ as of right now, that's not really a priority. Maybe in the future I can get one with better lounge perks, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:07)
Yeah, the capital was ⁓ making a sizable headway against Amex and chase of the world Yeah, they definitely their venture product is becoming ⁓ a formidable opponent to to them so

Speaker 1 (53:22)
I like it. It's helped me.

Yeah, yeah. I've been able to cash in some points too on plane tickets. Like I think that Maui trip, the flights were completely covered and then some of our Airbnb too.

Speaker 2 (53:34)
Oh, nice. Oh, wow. Beautiful. Beautiful. So this next question, I'm going to ask pre-family and then post-family. Most times when I speak to folks who have family, they always lean one way. When you typically travel, are you taking a check bag or a carry-on?

Speaker 1 (53:56)
Okay, so here's the deal. The very first trip that Adrienne and I went on, we brought huge check-in rollies, okay? Like we completely over-packed. And there was a part of our trip where we had to cross ⁓ a skinny plank to get onto this very wavy boat. And this plank, I'm telling you, it bowed in the middle. It was so sketchy.

Speaker 2 (54:08)
Hahahaha

Speaker 1 (54:24)
It was so sketchy. And I remember carrying this giant rolly, swearing to myself that I would never travel with that much luggage again. And so from that point forward, we've only traveled with backpacks, one each. And then for our toddler, now we can say post family with our toddler, it's also a carry-on, but it's a little tiny rolly. So it's a bit easier to manage all the things. Yeah, now we do have to still travel with the stroller. We check that in.

but everything else comes with us.

Speaker 2 (54:55)
see what saying. Okay, wow, but that's still impressive, a carry-on for the toddler. Okay.

Speaker 1 (55:00)
Yeah, yeah, we've, you know what we do? We bring enough diapers to get us through like half the trip. And then we kind of rely on purchasing diapers wherever we are. And part of that is because diapers take up so much luggage space. It's insane. It's insane. But also too, we've been doing this funny thing with our toddler. We started when he was two weeks old.

It's called elimination communication. teaches them how to use the potty. so, yeah. And so at this point, he's two and a half, he's out of daytime diapers. So that has significantly lightened the load that we have to even think about with diapers with traveling.

Speaker 2 (55:32)
⁓

Got it. So basically, because of that, your packing situation has definitely allowed, it's definitely decreased and allowed for the carry on situation to kind of work, set up to work.

Speaker 1 (55:54)
Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, like again, when he was little, we, we only packed enough diapers for like half the trip. then now that he's a toddler, he's pretty much potty trained. ⁓ we only bring enough pull-ups for at night. That's it.

Speaker 2 (56:08)
Okay, just for tonight, that's it. Okay, smart. right. fact. Yeah, minimalism fun fact. And for the listeners, yeah, I think they're gonna take that one in. Okay, when you do travel, is it window, aisle, or dare I say middle seat?

Speaker 1 (56:11)
Yeah, minimalist.

Okay, okay, I gotta think about this, because pre-family.

Speaker 2 (56:28)
Yeah, pre-family and post-family.

Speaker 1 (56:30)
Pre-family, honestly, I didn't really care, because I'm five feet tall. I take up zero space. People can crawl around me or I can easily squeeze by other people. So it doesn't really matter. ⁓ But post-family, I gotta have a window seat and hope that the plane has three seats on that side. Because some of them only have two.

Yeah, that's a whole thing. I never get the middle with like the four or five seats for the big international planes. I like the side window, partially because A, now the three of us are in our own little section together, but also, kid likes to look out the window. It helps make the plane ride easier.

Speaker 2 (57:14)
Got it. So basically pre-family didn't really matter. Post-family, guess sounds like you're in the middle and the kids in the window.

Speaker 1 (57:23)
Yeah. Yep. Pretty much. Or if I'm in the window, he's sitting on my lap because he wants the window.

Speaker 2 (57:28)
That's

one of them too. Gotcha. Okay. ⁓ So we talked about the great things of travels brought us or even just business in general and getting out there taking that leap of faith. But do you have any traveling pet peeves?

Speaker 1 (57:41)
Hmm. This is just a general life pet peeve. Please don't stand so close next to me in line. I hate it. It got worse after COVID, but it was definitely a thing that's always bothered me. Like, look, people, when you're traveling, just give people space. Give others space. At least like, I don't know, an arm and a half distance. I love the two shopping carts rule.

Speaker 2 (57:49)
I'm

You

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:12)
Give some space, man. Like, first of all, like people, there's an actual physical thing that our bodies go through when someone is in our personal space. Like our brains go into like a reactive mode. I'm not a scientist. I can tell you more about it. But also like when we're traveling, it can be a little stressful. And so give people, giving people more space helps to alleviate that stress in the overall environment, right? Yeah, very true.

Speaker 2 (58:39)
Okay, yeah, so arms level space. I'm with it. I'm with it. There's no need be towering over somebody. ⁓ Please don't do In any environment, more or less boarding a plane or even leaving the flight or whatever it is. Yes. Last one before I let you go, where are you flying to next? Where are you and your family flying to next?

Speaker 1 (58:53)
Yeah, man.

Oh man, haven't, we honestly haven't planned any flights. We have an upcoming trip to Yosemite, but we're driving. That's a five hour drive. But no, yeah, we're not flying anywhere. We need to think about that.

Speaker 2 (59:21)
All right. That's why we're going to do a part two just to get to where you booked that flight. We're going to do a whole other part two to figure out the whole decision making around this trip here. Kaila, I want to thank you for hopping on the Pay Me and Plane Tickets podcast. It's been wonderful having you on. And it's been, I'd say, very cordial and also just warm to hear your story and inspiring to kind of

Speaker 1 (59:33)
I'm here for it, let's do it.

Speaker 2 (59:50)
see how far you've taken not only yourself, but also your business and your family. It's a very, it felt like a very intelligent conversation that we just had.

Speaker 1 (1:00:00)
I'll take it. Thank you. I try my best to articulate. I gotta tell you, after becoming a mom, I feel like I've lost half my memory. I can't remember things as well. So I really, I really appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (1:00:06)
Yeah

No, no, no worries, no worries. And obviously, we're rooting for you.

Speaker 1 (1:00:17)
Thank you so

much.

Bringing Up Business (1:00:24)
I hope you enjoyed today's collaboration episode of Bringing Up Business and Pay Me in Plane Tickets. As you were able to just hear, Jelani is a fantastic host. To hear more of his episodes of Pay Me in Plane Tickets, you can find them on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to learn more about Pay Me in Plane Tickets, you can also find them on Instagram @ pay me in plane tickets, all one word, or on their website.

wapechi.com, that's W-A-P-E-C-H-I.com. And as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to DM me on Instagram at bub.podcast, or you can shoot me a message through our webpage at www.yumari.digital / bubpodcast. Also, I've linked the episode in the show notes, just in case you haven't heard his interview on Bringing Up Business. It's really good.

The episode is called The Value of Travel. Finally, if you got any value at all from this episode, please leave a review for both shows, Bringing Up Business and Pay Me in Plane Tickets on Apple or Spotify. It would help us tremendously to continue providing value for other entrepreneurs, parents, and travel enthusiasts. Thank you so much for listening.