Ep225 Zach Smith - Beyond Bucket Lists: How Mindful Travel Transforms Leadership

Zach Smith 0:00

I think a lot of people in business, they really focus on, well, okay, if I get this investment, or I get this investor, or if I get this round, then I'll be able to do all these other things. The deeper role that an entrepreneur plays is to really work within constraints and be creative.

Mike O'Neill 0:20

Welcome to get unstuck and on target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with confidence and vision, but also to achieve groundbreaking results. I'm your host. Mike O'Neill, I coach top level executives on the power of ethical leadership to forge teams to be as united as they are effective in each episode, join me for insightful conversations with leaders just like you providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward. Let's get started. You If you lead people or shape culture, this episode may surprise you. My guest today isn't a strategist. He's a travel entrepreneur, but Zach Smith, founder of anywhere.com understands something most leaders overlook, the moment that changes. It usually happens when we stop trying to control everything we talk about what travel can teach us about presence, trust, curiosity, and how those same skills can transform your leadership. So if you've been running fast, feeling stuck or longing for more meaning in your work. This might be the reset you didn't know you needed. Let's get to it. My guest today is Zach Smith. He's the founder and CEO of anywhere.com it's a travel company built on trust, not on transactions. For more than a decade, Zach has been quietly building tools and teams that connects travelers with local experts, not to package trips, but to craft something deeper moments that can transform how we see the world and ourselves. Zach doesn't really believe that travel just happens when you arrive. It happens when you're fully present, when you stop just seeing and start sensing, and when that experience becomes part of you, you can carry it back into your life and leadership. So you can kind of see why I was interested in bringing Zach on to this podcast. Is there is a link between travel and leadership, and hopefully, this conversation is going to be about what is possible when we let go of control, follow this curiosity that we know we have, and open ourselves to experiences that can leave a lasting imprint. Welcome.

Zach Smith 2:57

Zach, great to be here. Mike

Mike O'Neill 3:01

Zach, Zach, knowing that we're going to have this conversation, I found myself kind of thinking about where might this conversation go, and how might travel and leadership be linked? Why don't we just start kind of from the beginning, and that is, you've said that most people travel, but very few explore. What's the difference in your opinion, between seeing a place and actually experiencing it?

Zach Smith 3:31

Well, I think there is a bucket list mentality that some people have, or a, oh, I've been there. Have you been there? Kind of thing, and being physically in a place, sure, that does check a box. However, it really depends on how you experience that place and who you connect with so I feel like when you enter a new geography, a new territory, a new country, it's an opportunity to really understand the other people that are there. So travel, to me, has always been about people and not places as much, because it's those, it's that, those moments of connection that I think really stick with us, rather than, Oh, I took this picture of a beautiful view, or we stayed in this really nice place, or I was on this god forbidden cruise ship, and I just did a port of entry somewhere. And yeah, I've been there, and it doesn't really count, in my opinion. And so travel, actually, historically, has usually meant something. If you look at the root word, there's a bit of a struggle built. Into it. You're you, you need to endure a little something. So that means maybe getting a little out of your comfort zone. However, mass travel has made and marketed a very convenient way to physically move your body to many geographies and be in a hotel where all your needs are met. However, that's not an exploration. That's not really travel. In my opinion, some would maybe agree, some might disagree, but that's kind of our stance, is we want to make it easy to actually explore these geographies and explore the cultures within them and connect.

Mike O'Neill 5:44

I have read in some of your posts, you referred to that almost as mass tourism, and so that's kind of my next question, and that is, if you want to escape that mass tourism mindset and move into something that's more meaningful, what mental or emotional shifts do we need to make for that transformation to take place?

Zach Smith 6:10

Well, I think you have to have a bit of a curiosity about it, like just start to imagine, hey, I'm okay. I'm going to be flying for X number of hours. I'm going to be showing up in this place. What? How am I going to experience each of these days I'm planning to go there. And when you start saying, Oh, wow. Well, this, this package, or this all inclusive, it's, it's convenient, it will save me money. That seems great. All I have to do is it's a one click purchase or something like that. Well, that's very similar to the equivalent of, well, if you're making all your choices on price and convenience, we should all be eating at McDonald's, or we should all be having TV dinners every day. We should, you know, let's just have processed, industrialized food in our bodies all the time. And that is the equivalent of going to a place where you're not actually experiencing a country. You're just getting your needs met, and you're getting this convenient experience in a kind of a closed system, rather than moving around a geography, connecting with the different people and small businesses of that geography that are sharing their culture with you and welcoming you as A guest. And so that's more or less a one way to think about what, what separates mass travel with a more complex travel, which is what we specialize in.

Mike O'Neill 7:50

So let's use that term complex travel, and that is what I heard you describe, is intentionality, and that is give advanced thought to what is it we're going to be doing? How we're going to do that, to kind of ready yourself now, I know we're talking about in the context of travel, I would love to go back to this bucket list reference that you just made, and that is, I have a number of friends who have a long bucket list, and it just seems to me, when I hear them describe the trip that they just came back from, it really didn't seem to me to be much more than a check mark.

Zach Smith 8:33

Everyone is different, and so I really am not here to judge, but there is a deeper way to come back with an experience where you realize that the world is full of welcoming, safe people ready to ready to host you. You know the curiosity that comes well, rather the the connection that forms when you know, well, let me back up. So you mentioned intention. So similarly, we have always focused on understanding people's intent. So instead of giving people a long list of filters and an individual services that they can select from, think of like the online booking flow, where you're just picking and choosing from all these individual items. So we have that, but that's not what our homepage looks like. That's not what our flow that's not what our business model is. We focus on understanding the deeper preferences and motivations behind your trip, and then we become matchmakers of culture and experiences. So it's. Newer or it's rather a different experience for the visitor. So oftentimes we're the first time they've ever used a service like ours. It's rather unfamiliar, but I think it is a process by which people really do get more than just that bucket list experience of like, I've been there, I've done that, we did this, we did that. And the other thing that happens is a peace of mind while they're there, like they're in an unfamiliar place. They might not speak the language, they're they're moving around the geography. They're doing different experiences, but they're present. They're relaxed. They know what's happening and how things are flowing, and if something goes wrong, there's not any sort of, oh my gosh. How have all these chain reaction of things going to get disrupted because my son was sick or something occurred, we are a connected trip, so we're that single point of contact where anything comes up, we make the adjustments all like an accordion all the way down the line. So that accountability to our clients, actual experience by how they feel day in and day out of the trip, is the standard of service that we allow we provide. So we're we're not trying to convert people that are. They love cruise ships and they love just that energy of like, being around their own culture and just, you know, seeing the world from a ship or from a port of entry. They're probably not our traveler. They have to show some evidence of curiosity and interest in actually exploring a place, and then that's where we meet them, and are a really great match.

Mike O'Neill 11:48

I'll tell you what crossed my mind when you and I had the conversation as to you coming on the podcast, it seemed to me that there's an audience out there who who live a life in a way that they really on a daily basis, strive for that sense of presence, that intentionality. What kind of crossed my mind is the typical clients that we work with. These are busy leaders. These are folks that probably are more prone to do what you just kind of described, I was interested in, kind of us having this conversation to kind of introduce the idea that if a person in life wants to be more fully present, maybe one way you can kind of attempt that is to approach travel and the travel experience this way, the fact that you're maybe going to a total different part of the world. They don't speak your language. The culture is very, very different. It does immediately take one out of the comfort zone. And I'm mindful that leaders to grow, we have to figure out a way to get out of our comfort zone. We have to be willing to do things that just don't come naturally. Otherwise, we're just kind of kind of stuck. And that being said, you know, Zach, we've talked about the kind of the model that you're trying to set up to give your clients a choice. Let's talk about the business that you set up. When you set up anywhere as a business, what was kind of the thinking? What is it about anywhere that you wanted to build to with others, to kind of introduce that really, it might change one's view on on travel, what is it about that drew you to the approach that you all have taken from a business standpoint?

Zach Smith 13:41

Well, I feel a responsibility to honor the people and the cultures that we represent and really give them all the tools that they need to represent their country and for that cultural moment to occur, from the first point of contact, for that thread of a conversation or getting your questions answered, to that they are the ambassadors of their geography, and they then very, you know, they teach, actually the visitor, the vibe of that culture. They actually give people a primary knowledge of how supportive and wonderful the the experience will be prior to the experience actually happening. And so I've always thought that it's a it's a missed opportunity when people show up in a place and they're just, you know, in a large group, or they're not in. Able to have the context of the cultural context to really kind of get into that present state. They're just, they're like, oh, that those locals are, they're, they're the other. And so I've always wanted to make that connection from, like, right right away, and, and, and so then it's been a long process to just build all the tools. My business partner is, is the core engineer, so he's helped us really craft our technology over the years, through learnings, through primary learnings. And I, I've always really tried to drive this, this, you know, being a cultural bridge between, you know, our brand and all these different geographies, and honor them as best we can. So then each visitor comes away with just more primary perspective. And I think that perspective, generate, generating experiences has been really what delivering perspective generating experiences has been what's motivated me and driven me to just kind of keep doing it my own way, rather than, you know, focused on, you know, how much can I extract out of this business, or who can I, you know, sell portions of it too, and get into this whole sales thing. It's really been about, okay, we're going to just keep refining and refining and refining this process, and we have the tools to do it, and we can endure the low points and just hunker down when we experience those. But, yeah, that's been sort

Mike O'Neill 16:42

of the motivation behind it. As I'm listening to you describe what the goal was in starting this business, and I'm listening to just you and how you come across, I can see a lot of you there, and that is that intentionality, and that is we're going to dare to be different, and we're going to dare to to really, I may not say this well, but to really lift up these people and these cultures that people will experience, and that that you prepare a traveler for that. And so they go into that, and they probably come back with a much different experience. Can we bring this back to kind of leadership and maybe, maybe your own journey a little bit? Zach, can you maybe share an example, and be it your current business or in the past, where you found yourself kind of stuck, and when that happened, what worked for you to help you get unstuck?

Zach Smith 17:44

Well, yeah, there, there's been a few. One of the most stuck I think I've ever felt was when the world shut down, yeah, and international border crossings were not allowed. We had been through a few years of volatility in our own business, because we had restructured to be anywhere and and then that came, everything went to zero. Mike, yeah. And so I felt like this was a, you know, just a total bullseye of my life work and my partner's life work, and all the energy of all our collaborators. And you know, I just had to really choose to be patient and not try to force the issue. I didn't want, I didn't feel good about trying to, you know, market our clients. Hey, you should travel. It's like, this is a health issue. You know, it's precise, perceived as a major health issue. And, you know, I don't want to, you know, for my own selfish reasons, put people in a situation where, you know, they're like, I'm comfortable crossing borders and flying again. So it was a very sensitive time that we simply just had to be patient. And you know, that was, that was certainly one example. Other times you know me, personally, I, I, I always wanted to, you know, naturally grow this business. And we've had periods of time where that we were getting really good signal that we were on the right track. And this, this, this was, was working really well. And other times it's like, it kind of stops, and then it's just hard, hard to figure it out. And recently, I'd say, about six months ago, you know, I've, I haven't done any, you know, media or conversations with people like yourself or I've. Really been a behind the scenes kind of person that's sort of in my nature, and so I had to kind of come to this realization that I just have to step out in front and represent our network, and represent what we stand for, and represent the community, and try to be a counter position to the homogenization of culture and the big vending machine travel companies that are out there. And I, you know, it's, it's a, it's a that's going to be an ongoing, long term pursuit. So I'm here to play my role as best I can. I've learned a lot. We really think we we have a great product and a great solution for people. But, yeah, we're we're small and but we think we have the right ingredients to keep growing Exactly.

Mike O'Neill 20:51

Those are some great suggestions. Long Term listeners know that this podcast came out of the exact same thing, and that is, we were all stuck. We were all, quote, stuck together. And the question is, what can we learn from each other? And that's in large part why I started the podcast bring people like you on to open up our eyes to things that we might not think about otherwise. You know, Zach as I'm kind of reflecting on this conversation and your desire to grow this business, acknowledging the ups and downs, that's something I've learned as a business owner, and that is people just see all the success. What they don't see are the setbacks. And what do from those setbacks, and so I appreciate you sharing those examples. You know, as we've talked we've talked about a kind of a range of issues, from the actual travel industry to what you all do and how you are purposely trying to differentiate the experience. We've talked a little bit about people who might automatically just go to a website and seek out that one click solution, and the fact that what you're trying to do is not be judgmental, but to meet their needs. But probably my sense is, in the process, you're going to open up your client's eyes to things that they might not even have thought about. How does that make you feel when people report back after the experience something that really was truly life changing? What does that make that you feel as a business owner? Well, I it helps,

Zach Smith 22:39

because this business has, has been an expression of myself and my business partner and and I don't have other mediums of expression. I don't have musical talent. I don't really have, I mean, I can't hold a note for the life of me. You know, I'm an, okay, you know, drawer, but not really like, so I feel like this, this has been my life's work, and I feel that it's, there's a creative element to it, and that that that sometimes in business, people really get focused on the spreadsheets and the numbers and the ratios and all this sort of stuff. And, you know, that's kind of table stakes. But as an entrepreneur, you know you're trying to craft a, you know, an experience, something that the market maybe doesn't know it needs, but you know you're holding that energy and you're trying to birth it and bring it forward. And so you know that that's sort of all the way in which I've approached business as it's a form of expression of of my life and my energy, and that's how I've attracted the group of people that I have and hope to continue to attract more. And yeah, and I feel like, I mean going a little on a tangent. I think a lot of people in business, particularly younger entrepreneurs, they they really focus on, well, okay, if I get this investment, or I get this investor, if I get this round, then I'll be able to do all these other things. And I think just taking action on what you can control is really the role of an entrepreneur, as opposed to constantly, you know, being in this like, Oh, if we get this capital, or if I just get to this number, I'll be happier this number, then we'll be able to do this next thing. And I just think that it misses the deeper role that an entrepreneur plays is to really work within constraints. And. Be creative.

Mike O'Neill 25:01

I love that. You know, if you were to kind of reflect on this conversation, and you want our viewers and listeners to have a primary takeaway, what might it

Zach Smith 25:13

be, stay curious and take action.

Mike O'Neill 25:17

Very, very well. Said. Zach, I want to thank you for this conversation and just the way you kind of reminded us of how important sense of presence, trust and the curiosity those are not just travel virtues. Those really are leadership virtues too. If listeners want to connect with you or learn more about your business. What's the best way for them to do so

Zach Smith 25:47

well, our homepage says a lot that's anywhere.com I believe there's also a link that will be in the show notes as well. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm a slow on the uptake for social media and posting, but I'm starting to do a little bit more and and also my my email address is be@anywhere.com in case you want to connect with me directly. I'm

Mike O'Neill 26:14

I'm an open dude. Well, Zach, that's how you and I found each other. It was on LinkedIn. Again, I want to thank you, and I want to invite our listeners if this episode perhaps has sparked an idea or maybe even brought a leadership challenge to mine, I would love to help you think it through. I offer game plan strategy calls. These are by invitation only, and they're focused. They're a two hour coaching session where we're going to tackle one leadership challenge that really matters to you. And so here's what I can count. You can count on if you're going to do this, there's not going to be a pitch, there's going to be no pressure, but just real coaching to help you move forward with clarity. So if that sounds something that you would be interested in to be valuable to you, you'll find the link in the show notes as well. Zach, thank you again for sharing who you are, your passion and how you can bring a new approach to travel, really to light. So thank you for

Zach Smith 27:22

sharing that absolute pleasure making you're the best. Oh, thank

Mike O'Neill 27:27

you. I just want to thank our listeners. Everybody's listening. I hope this episode will help you get unstuck and on target. Thank you for joining us for this episode of get unstuck and on target. I hope you've gained insights to help you lead with confidence and drive your organization forward. Remember, at bench builders, we're committed to your success, your leadership excellence and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review rate and subscribe to keep up with our latest episodes, this show really grows when listeners like you share it with others. Who do you know, who needs to hear what we talked about today? Until next time, I encourage you to stay focused on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path. You

AI VO 28:27

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