A Day in the Life of a CEO with No Office
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I get a lot of questions about what I do on a day-to-day basis. If you take a peek at my Instagram feed, you see one story.
But allow me to unveil another side.
My days typically start at the crack of dawn — on the days where I’m most productive. If my body is still recovering from serious jet lag (PST, CST, CEST and everywhere in between), I wake up between 7–8:30a EST.
Some days I crack open a digital journal and write, other days I sit in silence and ponder. I may crack open Headspace & get some silence in, or I may refresh with some Gospel from my favorite Spotify playlist. I spend some time centering myself and remembering where I was in the previous week, how much I’ve improved, and I reflect on the improvements I have yet to make.
Because we work at a travel company, a lot of people think that we lounge all day and work exclusively from the beach. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We are never not working.
Disclaimer: As an entrepreneur that works 12–14 hours a day, I haven’t quite mastered the art of feeding myself like a normal human, so if you’re wondering what time I eat during the day, it’s often while I’m working.
Working at Home
7 AM— I hop onto our video platform for a 90 minute video call with my developer in Romania. Yes. 90 minutes. At 7 in the morning. Of course my video is off, because I look like a hot mess. In any case, we go over design functionalities, whether or not I want buttons to fade in or slide in, what to do with users who can’t retrieve their passwords, what happens if a user favorites a story, the type of scroll that is optimal for a user, what happens in a customer center, what resolution images on the mobile interface should be, and the like.
Because we’re working on two sites simultaneously, our call runs a bit over as we’re trying to fit everything in and mark milestones complete.
8:45 AM — Breakfast time, woo! But wait, I forgot to send mockup notes over to our designer in Los Angeles. She’s sleeping, but I really need to get these over to her before she wakes up. I log into our shared platform and take a look at the mockup notes.
I quickly jot some notes down within the platform so that she’s notified when she wakes up. Now it’s time for breakfast.
Because I’m not home as often as I’d like, I never really have enough good food. I have this weird habit of eating dry oatmeal, but this isn’t the post for that. I hop out of my apartment quickly to head to this cute little juice shop down the street. I have about 30 minutes to kill and I’m feeling good. Holla!
9 AM — I hop into Slack to shoot a quick note of love to my team for the morning. I never check my email this early, but this one time, I let go of all inhibitions and slide in my inbox. A note from our videographer in South Africa. I am a week late on some edits that I owe him. Shoot. Adding to my list of things to do. I’ve got a green juice in hand & I’m making my way back to my apartment.
9:30 AM — I plop onto my comfy couch, the place I will remain until 7p in the evening. I open up our team video to greet everyone.
Gaston: Chillin in his home in Brooklyn
Moraa: At home under the supervision of her adorable dog
Maya: In some coffee shop, in some country, somewhere on the planet
Bunge: Battling strange internet in her apartment in New Orleans
Shedisha: Bumpin’ and Grinding at her favorite cafe (Bump & Grind) in DC
Skye: Listening to Beyonce’s Lemonade on repeat in Houston, Texas
We use 30 minutes of our morning time to prepare our calendars for the day. We start out with a musical theme, and each person gets to choose a song. We’re going with “World Music” so I choose Nomakanjani, a South African favorite. We listen to music while we sync our calendars.
9:45 AM — Our morning meeting ends early, so I can hop over to some video edits for the remaining 15 minutes. I’m only able to get through edits for 1 video before I get a note from one of my other team members. We get a customer service question that requires all hands on deck in thinking about how we can best serve the customer in the highest capacity. Everyone on the team pitches in to help craft a message that is empathetic and kind before we all agree to send it off.
10 AM — I finalize the edits for the promo video and email our videographer. Alright, I take a look at my calendar and see what else I’ve got up for the day. Hmmm, looks like I’m scheduled to have calls to overlook new 2017 TN Experience destinations presented by our TN Experiences Ops team and I also seem to be chatting with Maya on the updated TN Experiences Bali itinerary.
As I’m sitting in this meeting, I’m blown away by my team. They are such rockstars, showing up every step of the way.
11 AM — I spend some time chatting with Bunge about a few surveys and notes from our current experience. We learn that a guest’s relative has passed away while on her experience. How can we make her trip a little better? We hop on the phone with our local Experience Designer and see what he thinks about stopping by a florist to pick up a beautiful arrangement of flowers. He’s 1000% game.
We get a note from another experience about a small disturbance in one of the rooms. The challenge here is that the hotel is completely sold out. How can we upgrade the guest experience? Bunge spends about 30 minutes researching viable options and solutions. We book another hotel room a few steps away from the current hotel for the guest. We review a few more surveys that have come in & we send them around the team for review. We hop on the video conference line to discuss possible outcomes, points of tension and solutions.
12 PM — It’s time for our daily sync! Our entire team spends 30 minutes connecting about customer feedback, finance updates and daily themes. We also have 10 core values that we speak to each day before we start the call. While the entire team works on different facets of the company, we really do rely on each other a ton.
12:30 PM — Skye sends me a contract to review for an influencer for our latest product, Compass. I edit a little bit of the SOW, but because contracts are not my expertise, I defer to our in-house legal rockstars.
12:45 PM — Time to call our bank; turns out our card was hacked sooooo #youalreadyknow…
1 PM — In the mean time, we have a business client call in a few hours that I need to prepare for, so I take to the internet for some digging. It doesn’t take me long to find the stats I need. I hop into a shared google doc that functions a bit like a script. I take one last read at the document before I close it. I take a quick break.
1:45 PM — I review the Compass launch timeline with Skye to make sure that we’re on track and hitting the milestones that we need to. I check in on the finalized pieces of contents, SOPs, Beta Launch timelines and check in on contractual obligations with a few of our freelancers.
2:15 PM — I get an email in my inbox from another one of our designers in Australia. She’s designing a product that we’ll be releasing in 2017. She needs me to approve some branding and identity work. I download the file and shoot it over to my team for their review.
2:45 PM — Client call time! We are blessed enough to get to chat with some C-Level Executives at a major Fortune 500 company. I cozy up in my bed with my notes in front of me. This call is scheduled for 30 minutes but goes over because both sides of the call are on a roll. We’re vibin’. We end the call on an awesome note. I feel good.
4 PM — Every week, someone from the Travel Noire team teaches something. Today, Shedisha is dropping some knowledge about international trade. She put together an entire presentation and we can all tell that she’s in her element. Our team has such an incredible depth of knowledge and I love that we can set aside time to really dive into our incredible skill sets beyond the ones that we utilize at Travel Noire.
5 PM — A few folks sign off for the night, and a few of us linger around. I still have a ton of work that hasn’t been completed, and I have yet to check my email. For optimal concentration, I try to check my email once or twice a day, and I keep my phone on the do-not-disturb mode from 8 AM to 9 PM.
5:30 PM — I spend some time going through emails: upcoming insurance renewals, reviewing documents that have been executed by our Board Members, checking out our legal bill (sheesh), renewing our registered agents in 5 different states, shooting a note to our curriculum designers, etc. I spend an hour following up via email and make notes for the following day.
6:30 PM — We have a new experience departing in the next few weeks, so I check in with Shedisha to make sure that all the emails have been scheduled, everyone has been contacted & we’re all good to go on the guest front. She gives me the nod of approval. We talk about the excitement of our on the ground partners and how we can’t wait to execute a stellar experience for our guests.
7 PM — My brain starts to fade, but right as I get ready to log off, Gaston sends me a round two edit of a plan we’ve been working on to send to our advisors.
I take a glance at it and shoot back some clarifying questions before we start chatting about a few other things — new destinations, what’s been happening in the news and a brand new Game of Thrones Itinerary we’ve just finalized for Compass.
I’m not a lover of Game of Thrones like 99% of my team, but I must admit, this itinerary does look pretty awesome.
8 PM — I start to wind down, brew some tea & think through my next day. I make a mental to-do list, and jot it down if I need to. I typically unwind with a book, an episode of Blackish, or a conversation with a friend. Most nights I can’t stop thinking about work — so I hop in and do a few more lightweight things.
I shared my very, very normal day so that you get an idea of how real life and social media can contradict each other. Social media highlights the highlights.
Now take this same schedule and throw a travel day in the mix.
Whether we are in our apartments or 40,000 feet in the air, we are still very likely doing work. It’s work that we’re incredibly passionate about. It’s work that we love — in fact, we consider it our life’s work. So if you see Travel Noire and you feel as though we never work, you’re probably right.
